


Protection

by inkheart9459



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F, Prompt Fic, Slow Burn, starts off pre-mirandy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 67,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3120938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkheart9459/pseuds/inkheart9459
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miranda knows there's something wrong with Andrea, just as she knows everything that goes on within the walls of Runway. She hasn't quite figured out just what yet, but she knows when she does she wants to help the girl. It's only because she's only of the best assistants she's had of course. Nothing more. Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Anon prompt from tumblr:"Miranda and Andy aren't in a relationship and Andy is still working for her. Andy is pregnant but she doesn't know it, she thinks she's just gaining weight,she starts eating less to compensate. Miranda sees something is wrong and thinks she knows what it is and she talks to Andy, and basically tells Andy she thinks Andy is pregnant and to go to her doctor. Andy gets scared and Miranda comforts her and gets all protective."

Miranda was aware of everything that went on in Runway. Every single thing. Her employees thought her deaf, dumb, and blind about things that didn’t happen in her presence, behind closed doors or whispered in bathrooms. But she had her ways and she found out everything, if not immediately, then soon after. What kind of editor-in-chief would she be if she didn’t know everything?

Which of course meant that she knew that something was rather wrong with Andrea. It had been going on for weeks now. The girl spent the morning running back and forth from the bathroom while fielding calls from top designers around the globe and helping Miranda’s life run more smoothly than it ever had before with more ease than some of her employees had chewing gum and walking at the same time. But even though she knew it was happening, didn’t mean she knew exactly what it meant. Oh, of course she had her suspicions, but there were a great many things that it could be and it wouldn’t do to ask about it until she had more evidence.

“About bloody time you got back,” Emily snarked in her usual way.

Miranda looked over her glasses out into the outer office. Andrea shrugged and went over to her desk.

“Sorry, the line for the salad bar at the cafeteria was really long.” Andrea’s voice was quiet, more subdued than normal. She hadn’t been quiet as vibrant since Paris and Nigel, but this was different.

“Oh so the smart, fat girl has finally got the message and started eating something other than corn chowder.” Miranda could practically hear the eye roll in Emily’s voice.

“Yeah, well, I got down to a size four without selling my soul to cheese cubes. It’s just that lately no matter what I do I seem to be gaining weight. I’m back into the size six things Nigel gave me at the beginning. So salad bar.”

That comment caused Miranda to pause for a moment. Constant trips to the bathroom and weight gain ruled out her suspicion that the girl had some sort of eating disorder or some other health problem. But it certainly pointed towards one eventuality. Miranda went through much the same thing when she was pregnant with the twins.

Miranda sat back, taking off her glasses and placing one of the ear pieces on her lip. It had been two months since Paris. The timing would make sense with the symptoms. That math worked out so it could be the cook boy’s child or perhaps the worse eventuality of Christian Thompson’s child. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense, to the point where she was almost positive of her conclusion.

She wondered if the girl even knew. She was a smart girl, surely she could put two and two together, but then again she was so young and it might not be her first conclusion. Or it could be denial and Miranda was well aware of how potent denial could be. Or it could just be that she was trying to keep it quiet until she was forced to reveal her secret. She was a young woman and freshly single, there would be those who would frown upon her pregnancy. With the way Runway was run she might even be afraid she would lose her job.

Fierce protectiveness reared its head at that thought. No, she would not let the girl be fired. But first, she needed to know if all of this thinking was on the right path. A good hypothesis meant nothing without data to support it. And so she waited. The girl would be in here soon enough with her lunch and she could speak with her then.

 

Twenty minutes later Andrea came in carrying the tray with her normal steak from Smith and Wollensky’s. She set it on the desk before Miranda and made to exit the room.

“Andrea,” she said quietly. “Shut the door and sit.” She gestured to the chairs before her desk.

Andrea looked like a deer in the headlights. She had lost a great much of her fear of Miranda, but that didn’t mean that out of the blue requests didn’t make her wary. Miranda had no illusions of her capriciousness, but her utter changeability worked well in the world of fashion, if not in the world of corporate America, and so she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Yes, Miranda?” The girl asked, sitting down in the chair indicated, right on the edge like she was about to bolt at any second.

“You’ve been ill rather a lot recently,” Miranda led in. How she responded would tell a great deal about if she knew or not. Miranda wasn’t always one hundred percent accurate at picking out liars, but she was good enough to land her in current position as head of a fashion empire.

“Uh, yeah, I don’t know what’s been going on. I’m trying not to let it interfere with my work life though, so I’m sorry if it has, but I’ll try better.”

Miranda held up her hand to stop the girl. She would babble on until the cows came home and then some if Miranda didn’t stop her. She still got glimpses of the nervous girl she had hired months ago when Andrea was on edge enough. She would almost find it endearing if it wasn’t at the most inopportune times.

“Andrea, it’s not interfering in your work. The office is running as smoothly as it always has, save for Emily’s rather pronounced annoyance at your frequent absences, that however is more her problem than yours.” She waved off the concerns with a flick of her fingers.

Andrea relaxed slightly, but her shoulders were still tense. “Then, what did you need, Miranda?”

“Have you been to the doctor about the problem, Andrea? Goodness knows I can’t have an assistant collapse on me, that would only intensify the rumors that you all spread that I kill off assistants and goodness knows everyone here has enough distraction with gossip as is.”

The girl swallowed visibly. “I, uh, haven’t really had time to go. Or…” she trailed off, obviously thinking better of her words.

“Or?” Miranda cocked an eyebrow.

“Or the money to go. With, uh, Nate gone I just have enough money to pay the bills and eat. Runway’s insurance would cover most of it, of course, but right now I don’t really have the twenty bucks or whatever it would cost me. And then I really wouldn’t have the money for any meds they would give me. And it’s not that bad so I’m just toughing it out. I’ll be fine. I won’t collapse on you or anything.” Andrea’s hands fidgeted in her lap, fingers twisting themselves into odd patterns and wringing around each other.

“You really don’t know what’s wrong?” she tilted her head.

Andrea shook her head.

Miranda stood up. “Come along, Andrea.” She walked around her desk, listening to Andrea scramble up behind her to follow her.

She emerged into the outer office and looked at Emily. “Clear the rest of my day. Rearrange what you must to make that happen. That’s all.”

Emily gaped at her for half a second before setting to work with all the frenetic energy that could be packed into a five seven red head that subsisted on cheese cubes.

Miranda turned back to Andrea. “Come along. Oh, and Emily, call Roy. I want to be picked up by the time the elevator reaches the ground floor.”

She couldn’t say that her lips didn’t quirk at the small distressed noise that made its way out of Emily’s mouth. The girl made it far too easy to fluster her, but she always did come through.

Andrea walked with her to the elevator banks, wide eyed, obviously not knowing what in the world was going on. She kept glancing at Miranda out of the side of her eyes. Miranda for her part pretended not to notice.

She pulled her Blackberry from her purse and punched in a number. It started ringing almost immediately. The elevator doors opened and Miranda stepped on, motioning for Andrea to come into the car as well. That caused the girl’s frenetic energy to ratchet up another notch. Honestly.

“Hello?” A slightly accented English voice asked.

“Martha, how are you, darling?” she said, putting just a little more effort into her greeting than usual.

“Right in the middle of a full load of patients, Miranda, but I think you already knew that.” Martha sounded as amused and she did annoyed. Miranda could work with that.

“And so I did.”

“So why don’t we cut to the chase. You wouldn’t call to chat in the middle of the work day, so what do you want?”

“One of my assistants needs an appointment.”

Andrea beside her perked up and looked over at Miranda. Miranda didn’t look over, watching her reflection in the shiny metal in front of her instead.

“She dying? Because that’s the only reason I could imagine you calling me for an assistant. Your girls, yes, but an assistant?”

“It’s a rather…delicate situation and I trust you to handle it well.”

Andrea looked even more curious at that. The journalist in her was parsing out the meaning to Miranda’s words and she knew there was more to it than just the fact that she herself was broke and couldn’t afford a doctor’s appointment. There were plenty of free clinics around the city if that was all.

Martha sighed. “Alright, alright, get her here as soon as possible. But you so totally owe me dinner sometime soon for this.”

“I believe that’s a fair trade. We’ll be there as soon as possible.” With that Miranda hung up and slipped her phone back into her purse and stepped out of the elevator just as the doors were opening.

She strutted through the entryway of Elias-Clarke, the sight of people clearing the way before her cheering her as usual. Andrea hurried to keep up with her pace, too busy concentrating on not falling at such speeds to question Miranda.

But then they were out in the cold December day and Roy was already there as promised. Oh, Emily was good, but Miranda would never tell her that. Roy opened the door for her and she slipped in, relishing the heat even after the relatively short trek in the cold. The next second Andrea was beside her and they were off.

Andrea turned to her. “Miranda did you just call in a favor for me?” Her brow was scrunched, confused. Confused enough that she had broken one of Emily’s rather ridiculous rules about asking her questions. My, she had rattled the girl.

“In a way, I suppose. Martha is a friend, a real one, not like the great many of the ‘friends’ of mine that you’ve met.” Once upon a time before La Priestly had been a thing, Miranda had shared an apartment with Martha while she had been doing her residency and Miranda herself had been climbing the ladder at Runway. They had absolutely nothing in common, but somehow had become rather good friends. Miranda had stopped questioning it long ago.

“All that she asked was for dinner in return for the rush appointment and it isn’t like we don’t meet for at least one meal a month, so it really depends on your idea of a favor, Andrea.”

Andrea’s face just got more confused as she processed the information. “Ok,” she drew out the sound. “But then why did you say it was a delicate situation?”

Miranda looked the girl over. She wondered if it was better for Martha to break the news to her, or to just get the idea out in the open now. After all, Miranda herself could be wrong, but when Martha told Andrea the news she wouldn’t be wrong. The girl could have some time to deny the idea, time to get used to it, before her bubble was popped. Though would that be better or worse?

“Andrea, have you ever considered that you could be pregnant?” Better just to dive in with it, she supposed.

Andrea sat back like Miranda had punched her. “Um, no, that’s not possible.”

“Is it really? Two months ago you were in Paris having an unadvised fling with Christian Thompson. Before that you were involved with your cook. You’re telling me that it’s not possible at all?”

Andrea’s mouth flapped like a fish. Honestly, it was like the girl had forgotten that she knew just how she’d come by the information of Irv’s plot to overthrow her. Or perhaps it was that Miranda was speaking rather frankly about her sex life. She didn’t know which was worse. Both implied a level of stupidity that she knew the girl didn’t have. Of course she knew exactly what happened between those in a relationship, she had two twin daughters to prove it.

She just arched her eyebrow and waited for Andrea to reply instead of voicing her scathing comments, however.

“Uh, um, I guess it’s possible, but I mean, we always used condoms, Nate and I. And with Christian I wasn’t going anywhere near him unless he had a condom on. God even knew where he’d been.”

Miranda snorted at that. God probably didn’t even know all the places that boy had been.

“And you’re telling me that condoms never fail.”

“No, but I mean, I just…” Andrea blushed bright red and fell silent. “Miranda, I can’t be pregnant. Not in the, there’s no possibility way, but in the I can’t have a kid way. I’m barely making it. I have nothing to offer a child right now,” Andrea finally said after a long silence.

Miranda knew that feeling, the not having anything to offer a child. What they hadn’t been able to offer at the time was different. Miranda had no time to offer a child. She was always on the go, always on the move, heading up Runway and whipping it into shape after taking over. She wasn’t sure she would be able to offer love either. Her mother had been so very lacking in love. She’d had no example and she’d worried and worried every single night of her pregnancy over that fact, but still she never even harbored the thought of getting rid of them.

“I mean, I would like to be a mom one day, don’t get me wrong, but not right now. I have no financial stability, no partner, which I mean isn’t necessary, but it would help, you know? And I don’t have any family here to help and make up for all the things I don’t have. I don’t even have friends anymore. They left with Nate. They blamed me for the split. And I’m sad they left I’m kind of glad because they all wanted me to stay the same, but never changing wasn’t why I came to the city. But this is too much change too soon. I wanted to be an established journalist before all this happened. And I know it’s still possible to do, but…” Andrea took a deep, shuddering breath.

Miranda could take no more. She reached out and grabbed Andrea’s hand. “Andrea. I may not exactly be your friend, quite the opposite, really, but I will be here for you through this, whatever you decide to do. I have faith that you will make the right choice for yourself. After all, you’re one of the best assistants I’ve ever had and the only one I’ve ever said as much to. If that doesn’t tell you how intelligent and level headed you are, I don’t know what will.”

Andrea looked at her, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Why?”

The corners of Miranda’s mouth turned up. “I told you in Paris that your remind me a great deal of myself. You didn’t react favorably to the comparison for good reason after what I did to Nigel. I maintain that you are much like me, however, there are a good many ways you differ from me, one of which is your unfailing kindness. Consider this a way to protect you from becoming wholly like me.”

Andrea’s head titled to the side slowly. She blinked back the tears and looked at Miranda with clear brown eyes. Miranda’s heart stuttered a little at the sight and she wondered what all that was about, but waved the thoughts away. Those could be dealt with later.

“You’re not bad, Miranda. Sure, you have flaws, we all do, but people could do a lot worse than becoming just like you.”

That brought a true smile to Miranda’s face. “Oh, I’m sure. I’m not bad, but I’m not good or nice either. I’m just right to play the witch in everyone’s stories that they go home and tell their friends and family.”

“But they don’t have the whole story. Not when you do stuff like this.”

Miranda smiled. “No one has the whole story, Andrea, except for me.” The car pulled up outside of the office building where Martha had her offices. “Come along, Andrea, you can figure out what you choose later, for now confirmation of the problem might be more important.”

She stepped outside the car and strode to the entrance, Andrea once more on her heels.


	2. Chapter 2

Andy took a deep breath and then another. Miranda’s words were still echoing in her head. Pregnant. She might be pregnant. Now that she actually thought about it in that light it made complete and utter sense. She was surprised that she hadn’t seen it herself, but then again there was always something to do with Runway that she really hadn’t had time to think.

She glanced over at Miranda. They were sharing yet another elevator car on the way up to whatever doctor Miranda knew. Martha, she said her name was. Andy tried to remember if she had seen the name before. She made all the reservations for Miranda for dinners and such, but she’d never seen the name. Either Miranda put her under a different name or took care of everything herself. Which, since she had said Martha was a good friend the second might be the best option.

She couldn’t quite understand why Miranda was doing this. Things between them hadn’t really changed since Paris, yet here she was, being the kindest Andy had ever seen her. Hell, she was being the kindest person to Andy in a while. When things had started to go bad with Nate he had stopped being the nice, loveable guy he had been and so had her friends. It was so entirely jarring that Miranda was the one to step into that void. It was almost enough to make her forget that she might be pregnant.

She might be pregnant.

The thought hit her again like a brick to the side of the head. She swayed a little bit where she was standing and then suddenly Miranda’s hand was on her back steadying her. She leaned into the touch, grateful for it. She wasn’t sure she could stay upright in four inch heels right now without support.

Then the doors of the elevator were opening and Miranda’s hand left its place on her back like it had never even happened. This was so surreal she might just wake up sometime soon to discover this was all a dream. Part of her hoped that was what happened. The other part wanted to stay and see if this kindness from Miranda could last.

The two of them walked down the hall and into a suite of rooms that turned out to be a rather posh doctor’s office. From what Andy could tell it was definitely something that those of the upper crust would go to and definitely something Andy could never afford. Nausea settled into the pit of her stomach.

Miranda marched up to the receptionist. “Miranda Priestly, I believe Dr. Jones should have spoken with you recently about my arrival.”

The girl immediately stood up and nodded enthusiastically. “Of course, Miranda. Let me just check that the room she wanted you in is in order, the others were just straightening things out.” She disappeared and reappeared quickly, Miranda barely even had time to scowl. “Right this way, ladies.”

She led them back through a winding hall and to a room that was definitely different than any of the doctor’s offices that Andy had ever been in. It looked more like a room out of a luxury hotel than an exam room. The receptionist gestured over to the standard doctor’s office table, except this one was made out of what looked to be mahogany and real leather.

“A nurse will be with you in a moment to take your basic information.” She smiled at them and left just as quickly as she had come.

Andy resisted the urge to kick her legs into the examination table once she hoisted herself up. She had way too much pent up energy. She felt like pacing the room but she had a feeling Miranda would appreciate that just about as much as she would appreciate her banging her seven hundred dollar Manolo Blahnik’s into the wood of the table. It was probably fashion blasphemy or something. But she felt like she was about to crawl out of her skin and she needed to do something.

“So, uh, how do you know this doctor? You said she was your friend, but how did you meet?”

Andy looked over at Miranda, watching her. She couldn’t quite bring herself to feel bad for asking a question when she was so damn nervous. Miranda looked hesitant to answer, but eventually opened her mouth anyway.

“Long before I was editor-in-chief she was my roommate.”

“Oh.” That was so very plebian for someone like Miranda Priestly and not what she was expecting at all. She was really expecting them to have met at some sort of smoozing event, but then again, even Miranda had to have a less glamourous past.

“No one ever thinks I’ve been anything other than the head of the fashion industry. How short people’s memories are.” She sounded amused in that rather deadpan way of her.

Andy really didn’t know what to think of it. “Well, you carry it off as if you really always have been. It’s hard to imagine you as anything else.”

Miranda hummed, an affirmation that she had heard Andy’s comment more than anything else.

Andy went back to trying desperately not to fidget. She hoped that the nurse came soon. If this was a normal doctor’s appointment Andy wouldn’t even dream of a nurse coming anytime soon, but she was in the room with Miranda, that usually speeded the normal timeline of things up just a bit.

If she couldn’t move then her brain was going to start going through each and every single eventualities that this could end up in and she’d probably slightly panic herself. Well, probably more than slightly. Probably a lot. She made plans and executed them, but this was something that defied that. How was she supposed to plan when she didn’t know a thing really. You couldn’t really plan living from one paycheck to the other just trying to take care of a kid, could you?

Andy brought a hand to her mouth and started to chew on her thumbnail.

“Andrea, stop that, you’ll ruin your nails. The makeup department did not paint your nails with those designs to have you just chew them right back off.”

Andy took her thumb out of her mouth and blushed. “Sorry, I’m just—”

“Nervous, I’m well aware. You’ve been on edge since before we left Runway and I imagine the news that your might be pregnant has not made the situation any better.”

“Uh, yeah, not really.” Andy glanced at Miranda. She was perfectly composed as normal, legs crossed primly, sitting back in her seat with perfect posture. Andy wondered if this is how she had been when she had found out she might be pregnant with the twins. Probably. She couldn’t imagine Miranda being anything _other_ than perfectly composed.

The nurse chose that moment to appear from the ether, knocking on the door twice before entering the room. She was the tiniest Hispanic woman Andy had ever seen, barely pushing four ten if that, with the brightest smile that put most of the Runway models to shame, not that they ever smiled much.

“Hello, I’m Liz and I’ll be taking down your basic information for the doctor, height, weight, blood pressure, and all that. So what brings you in?”

Andy hesitated. Should she just go ahead and tell the nurse that she might be pregnant or should she list her symptoms and let everything be deduced by the doctor? She was about to respond when Miranda took the choice away from her.

“She believes she might be pregnant based off of repeated nausea and vomiting in the mornings along with spells of dizziness as well.” Miranda looked over at Andy, eyes prompting her to add anything else pertinent.

“I’ve been a little more tired than usual, but I just wrote it off because I don’t usually get a lot of sleep.” Andy looked firmly at Liz and not at Miranda. Her boss would totally read between the lines of that statement. She didn’t get a lot of sleep because her job at Runway was more like a twelve hour shift than an eight hour, if not longer most days. “And I’ve been gaining weight, but not really eating more than I did before.”

Liz nodded, wrote everything down on the chart in front of her. She asked Andy to hop off the table and took her height and weight measurements, then sat her back down to take her blood pressure and ask her an endless list of questions. Frankly, Andy would have preferred those little forms they always gave you at a new doctor’s office. It probably would have been faster, but then again she didn’t suppose that the super rich people who frequented this office ever actually deigned to do their own paperwork, so there was that. When she was done Liz disappeared with another smile and a promise that the doctor would be with her as soon as she could.

Andy sighed and fought the urge to lay back. She was just so very tired and all this stress wasn’t helping at all. But Miranda was still there, and no matter how nice she was being Andy didn’t want to push her luck. After all, she wasn’t in sweat pants and tank top, she was in a Bill Bass skirt and Chanel shirt. She would probably be murdered if she wrinkled anything. Instead, she just put her head in her hands.

“Are you alright, Andrea?” Miranda voice was closer now.

Andy peaked out of her fingers to find Miranda right by her side, with her hand outstretched like she couldn’t quite decide if she wanted to touch Andy or not. Hesitant Miranda was something she hadn’t quite seen before. Well, that was a bit of a lie. She had seen something back in Paris, but that wasn’t exactly hesitation was it?

“Yeah, I’m fine, just tired.”

“After this Roy will take you home. Emily can bring me the Book tonight. No matter what is wrong with you, you need rest.” Miranda’s hand finally came that little bit forward and started to rub small circles on her back.

Andy stiffened for a half a second before relaxing into the touch. She had almost forgotten what comforting touch had felt like. Since Nate had left there hadn’t been any. In fact, she hardly had any physical contact with people at all besides an occasional brush of fingers and the even rarer half hug, half air kiss that she got from people at parties. Her eyes drifted shut again and she kept her head in her hands.

“Until whatever is wrong with you is figured out you will come to work at nine and leave at five so you may get the proper amount of rest. If you are pregnant we will revisit this upon the confirmation.” She kept up the circles on Andy’s back.

“Ok.” Andy took her head out of her hands. She met Miranda’s eyes, softer than she had seen them ever and as open as they had been in Paris. This was all so odd. And as disconcerting as it was it always also comforting.

Miranda nodded, patted her on the back a few times and walked back to her seat as if nothing had happened. Andy looked out of the corner of her eye at the older woman. The woman was a mystery wrapped in an enigma and that might be an understatement.

There was another knock on the door and an older black woman stepped through with a kind smile and no nonsense air about her. She stepped forward with her hand extended.

“Hello, Andrea, my name is Dr. Jones.”

“Andy, please.”

Dr. Jones looked over at Miranda. “I suppose she doesn’t let you get away with that nickname, does she?”

Andy glanced back to see a scowl flash across Miranda’s face. “Of course not, Andrea is a beautiful name.”

The doctor snorted lightly. “Same old Miranda, different assistant. She call you Emily for the first few months too?”

Andy turned back towards the woman. She heard Miranda’s disgusted noise in the background.

“She did.” A smiled pulled at the edges of Andy’s mouth.

“A fully fledged initiate then, you are. Whatever she tells you, she hasn’t called for any of her assistants to see me before, so you must have made quite the impression. Whatever I put you though today will be nothing in comparison to whatever is going on at Runway.”

There was a winter storm front brewing in the corner of the room and its name was Miranda. Andy was a bit astounded at the way the woman talked about Miranda, right in front of Miranda. She either had a death wish, or she was really a true friend as Miranda had said. It was strange to see. Even Nigel didn’t have the power that this woman did. Or maybe Nigel just didn’t have the balls that the woman in front of her did. Either way, it was odd to watch. Normally Miranda would have torn into a person by now with her usual icy fierceness, but all she was doing was stewing.

“Oh, Martha, enough.” Miranda rolled her eyes. “These antics are never funny.”

Dr. Jones smirked. “I think they are pretty damn funny and if you didn’t find some grain of truth in them we both know you’d have been all over me. Don’t think I don’t know how to read between the lines of your stories.”

Miranda huffed again and sat back in her chair.

“Now, Liz tells me you’ve been experiencing an increase in fatigue, nausea and vomiting in the morning hours, weight gain, and spells of dizziness?” And just like that the woman was in business mode.

Andy nodded. “Yes.”

The doctor pursed her lips. “Your blood pressure was completely within normal range, if a little on the low side, that could explain the dizziness, but not the other symptoms. Unbutton your shirt please so I can listen around.”

Andy complied and unbuttoned it as quickly as possible. She glanced over at Miranda but glanced away again just as quickly. Miranda had seen more than enough half naked women for this to be a nonissue for her. Andy just had to act like it wasn’t an issue for her and everything would be fine. Even if it was slightly freaking her out just a bit. But then again who wouldn’t be a little weirded out sitting in the same room as their boss with their shirt unbuttoned?

The doctor listened to her heart and lungs as soon as Andy had complied. Next she had Andy lie back and gently probed different areas of her abdomen. She stepped back after that and looked down at the chart she had.

“You can button up your shirt again, Andy. I don’t feel anything abnormal that would indicate any kind of irritation of the digestive system. Everything reads as quite normal, really. Your last sexual encounter was two months ago?”

Again Andy nodded. There was no way she was speaking up at that instant. Sure, Miranda already knew, but this was just a whole new level of awkward.

“And the only form of birth control you were using was a condom, not the pill.”

“No, I have some interesting reactions to most birth control.”

The doctor nodded along. “Alright, since everything is reading as normal, the most likely thing is that you are indeed pregnant, but I’ll run a full round of blood tests on you just to make sure it isn’t something else as well as a urine test.”

Andy sighed and tried to control her heart rate. She really didn’t like needles, but in this case it was necessary and not something like a flu shot so she was going to have to tolerate it.

“Ok, um, I’m kind of freaked out by needles so…” she trailed off.

Dr. Jones nodded. “I’ll send Liz back in then. She’s the best one in the office.”

Andy sagged just a little bit. “Thank you.”

“If you do happen to be pregnant, you’ll need to come back for another appointment of course. We’ll discuss the options you have then.” She looked over Andy carefully for a few seconds. “Free of charge of course. I love racking up dinners that Miranda here has to pay for.” She smiled at Andy kindly. “Now, if you’ll follow me we can get the urine test out of the way.”

Andy followed her obediently and went through all the tests required. Liz had come back in and stuck her with a needle and taken her blood before she had even realized what was happening. The woman was very good. Even so Andy had shaken just a little after Liz had left with four tubes of her blood. She really did _not_ like needles.

Miranda had been by her side in a second, rubbing her back again. “The twins aren’t fond of needles either. They say this helps.”

It did. But mostly the oddness of the whole situation took her mind off of things and helped the most. Andy would take whatever worked.

They walked out together again and into the car. Andy sunk down into the leather of the Benz and sighed. It was over for now. It would be a couple days before the lab work came back and until then Andy could forget this was happening for a day or two. It wasn’t like a couple days would really make a difference now. Whatever choices she had would still be there in three days. She would still be just as trapped, really. She had no money to keep the kid if she was pregnant and she had no money to have an abortion either. God, even if she did, did she want one? She didn’t know. It might be better for her in the long run, and it a weird was, for the kid as well. If she didn’t have the money to support it and give it what it needed then it was probably better off not being born.

She massaged her temples this was so not what she wanted to be thinking of right now. She was going to not think about it for a few days. That’s what she had told herself. And it had been minutes and she couldn’t do it.

“Honestly, that woman,” Miranda shook her head.

Andy looked up at her.

“Her bedside manner has always been atrocious. She’s far too loose with her tongue at times as well.” Miranda huffed and stabbed the keys of her Blackberry like she was murdering it.

Andy looked over her face carefully. Miranda was being her normal huffy and indignant self, but something was off. Her facial expression wasn’t quite right. If she had to guess, Miranda might actually be…amused? under everything.

“I only keep her around because she’s the best private practice doctor in the city.”

Andy almost said something to the tune of she didn’t believe the woman, but instead she went for, “I’m sure, Miranda.” And if there was a little bit of laughter in her voice then who could blame her. For all the ice the woman exuded it looked like there might be something downright warm and syrupy underneath.

Miranda, for her part, picked up on the disbelief instantly and glared at Andy. Andy was cowed enough to shut her mouth, but she couldn’t quite wipe the remnants of a smile off her face. She spent the rest of the ride wondering just what kind of friendship the two women really had and wondering just how much of the fashion industry would die if they knew Miranda had a true friend who didn’t work in fashion.

Roy stopped in front of her apartment twenty minutes later. Andy moved to get out but a hand on her shoulder stopped her.

“I want to see you no earlier than nine in the morning tomorrow, Andrea. I will take care of Emily and anyone else that need be.”

Andy nodded and hesitated for a second. Miranda hated to be thanked and she knew that, but in this situation she felt like it was truly deserved. “Thank you.”

Miranda just stared at her for a long moment. “You’re welcome. Tomorrow then, Andrea, that’s all.”

Andy had to hold back a laugh at the normal dismissal. It sounded almost…affectionate wasn’t the right word, but warmer than the normal order. Things were so very different and yet the same. She didn’t know what was happening. Then again, when had she since she came to the city.

She waved goodbye and climbed up to her apartment and promptly changed into sweat pants and tank top and fell into bed. It didn’t matter for now.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Andy was sitting at her desk at Runway three days later when the call from the doctor’s office came in. She answered it without even looking, much too used to having to answer every call even if she didn’t recognize the number for Runway purposes.

"Hello?"

"Hello, this is Aria from Dr. Jones's office, may I speak to Andrea Sachs, please," a pleasant female voice said.

"This is her," Andy said, distractedly typing in something into her computer.

"I'm calling with your results   from your visit to Dr. Jones's office."

Andy froze, fingers still poised above the keyboard ready to hit the next letter. "O-oh, um, ok. What did the tests says."

"The blood work came back completely normal, however, both the urine test and your blood work confirmed that you are, indeed pregnant. Dr. Jones wished to see you again to follow up on the results, do you know when you're available?" Aria asked, voice still cheerful as if she hadn't just dropped a bomb on Andy.

"I, um." Andy didn't know quite what to say. Miranda had been so very supportive three days ago, but that was three days ago. The woman was ever changing at the best of times and completely unpredictable at the worst. "Um, I guess as soon as possible and if you have anything early in the morning that'd be good."

The woman on the other end of the line hummed and Andy heard typing in the background. "There's an appointment tomorrow at ten a.m., someone just cancelled actually."

Andy swallowed. If worst came to worse and Miranda was being her normal capricious self again she could just get Emily to cover for her for a couple hours. She'd have to sell her soul to the Brit in favors to make up for it, but she could manage.

"That's fine."

"Alright, I'll put you down for that time slot and we will see you tomorrow."

"Ok, thank you." Andy hung up the phone and stared at it for a very long time after that. She was pregnant. There was no if anymore. It was a reality. She was pregnant.

Oh. Holy. Shit.

Andy closed her eyes and held back the urge to cry. She was strong. She would get through this as she always had. She finally set her phone back on her desk and finished typing what she had set out to do who knew how long ago.

She tried to work valiantly, she really did but her brain was still elsewhere despite her best efforts. It was turning over the puzzle pieces of the problem she was in, trying to get everything to fit in a neat, perfect order. Except all the pieces were jagged, from completely different puzzles with ends cut off and new holes punched. She didn't know what to do. Her life had been mostly neat up until this point, everything fitting together and if there were a few missing pieces she filled up the spaces easily enough. But this she just couldn't.

"Andrea?"

Andy jerked back from staring at her computer screen. She looked up to see Miranda standing over her. "Oh, um, sorry, Miranda my mind was elsewhere for a sec. What do you need?" She drew her ever faithful notepad to her, looking up at the older woman expectantly.

"Andrea, my office." She turned and walked through the doors in a flurry of heel clicks. "And pull the doors on your way in."

Andy took a deep breath as she stood. Emily looked up at her with an eyebrow cocked, wondering just what she did for Miranda to call her into a closed door meeting twice in one week. Andy just shrugged at Emily and walked through the door, pulling them shut behind her as instructed.

"Sit," Miranda commanded and Andy got the strangest sense of deja vu.

She went and sat in exact same chair and looked up at Miranda once again. Miranda sat down in her own chair calmly and looked back at Andy, eyes a shade or two darker than their normal ice blue. Andy wasn’t sure what to make of that. They turned a stormy almost grey when she was angry, but she’d never known them to get bluer. Perhaps it was just her shirt playing tricks on her.

“Andrea, what has you out of sorts?” Miranda asked, crossing her legs at the ankle and tucking them back behind one of the legs of the chair.

“I, um, Dr. Jones’s office called me earlier.” Andy looked out the windows behind Miranda and took a deep breath, looking at the sky scraper across the street.

Miranda waited for a long moment for Andy to go on, but when she didn’t she prompted her. “And what did Martha’s office have to say?” Her tone was that gentle one that she seemed to be becoming a trend whenever she talked about Andy’s current situation.

“That I am actually pregnant. Everything else on the blood work was normal, but I am pregnant.” Andy closed her eyes and swallowed. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t.

“When do you go back for your next appointment?”

Andy didn’t even bother to open her eyes. “Tomorrow at ten.”

She heard Miranda’s chair squeak quietly as the older woman leaned back. “I’ll have Roy pick you up tomorrow at nine fifteen. That will allow plenty of time at the tail end of morning rush hour to get you to Martha’s office.” She paused for a moment. “Andrea, would you like me to come along again, or would you rather go alone?”

Andy blinked her eyes open at that. Miranda’s face was completely sincere. She truly wanted to know what Andy wanted and would go with whatever she said. Andy thought about it for a few long moments. She had no one else to go with, no one to support her, no one to help her make the decision about what to do. Whatever she decided now, she had a feeling would set the precedent for the rest of the pregnancy, however much was left of it at least.

“If you, um, could come with me, I’d like that.”

Miranda smiled, slow, open, and almost tender. “Then that’s what I’ll do.” Another blink and Miranda was back to her normal self again. “Oh, and call Lucia, tell her that the new line that Armani is putting out is absolutely horrid and if she wants space in any Runway for this season she’s going to have to give me something that is actually usable.”

Andy nodded. “I’ll call her right now, Miranda.”

“That’s all then.”

Andy stood from her chair and walked back to her desk. Stranger and stranger, she thought as she picked up the phone to make some else’s day hell. To deny she might have felt at least a little zing of pleasure at the thought would be lying.

 

The next morning she was bouncing on her toes in her apartment long before Roy was ever supposed to arrive. She couldn’t bring herself to relax. She had taken off her heels to give herself a little more leeway in her pacing. It wouldn’t do to make her feet kill her before she ever stepped foot in Runway. That would just make her day that much better.

Andy had to stop herself from running her hand through her hair. It had been a nervous habit before she’d joined Runway and then she’d trained herself out of it. After all, who wanted to mess up their hair when they had spent forty minutes on it that morning? But now it was back with a vengeance. How was she supposed to control her nerves when this had so very many consequences?

Andy paced and paced, watching the minutes tick by. What was she going to tell Nate? Was it even Nate’s baby? It really could be Christian’s. God she had slept with both of them in such a short time frame, one last fuck with Nate in a vain attempt to try to fix everything at the last second and then two weeks later with Christian in Paris. Was there even a way to tell without a DNA test if everything was that close together? She groaned out loud, sound startling in her almost empty apartment. Nate had taken a great amount of stuff when he had moved out while Andy was in Paris. She hadn’t blamed him, really, he’d helped pay for everything, he did at least deserve a few things. But honestly, taking the couch and TV both had been a shitty move.

God, what if the kid was Nate’s? He’d want to do the right thing by the kid, he’d probably want to get back together or something stupid like that. Andy didn’t want that, that was the last thing she wanted. Nate would go right back to badgering her to quit her job at Runway, saying it was too stressful on the baby, that she needed to be home to take care of the kid like it was suddenly the fifties again.

But what if it was Christian’s? She scowled at that. That was a grey area. She didn’t know him well enough to really guess. She had known Nate for five years, dated him for four. She could practically recite word for word what he would say to the news of a baby. Christian she couldn’t quite decide if he would be overbearing, offer to help and be in the kid’s life but let Andy have most of the control, or complete just blow off responsibility. Her gut was going with either of the last two being the most likely. He was a slimy guy in the business world, but he had appeared decent enough personally, the sliminess could be his whole personality or it might not.

This was all contingent on if she was keeping the kid or not. She didn’t have to tell anyone if there wasn’t a kid to keep. Was she keeping the kid? The question had been spinning in her head for the last three days. She didn’t know. She really and truly didn’t know. There were options other than abortion, she could have the kid adopted, but that would involve a great deal of drama, especially if the father was Nate. It wouldn’t give the kid up without a fight and he’d make Andy feel like absolute shit while doing it.

Oh god, what about her parents? They were loving and supportive, but they were still Midwesterners from the bible belt. Andy could hear the I still love you, but I’m disappointed in you speeches. It wasn’t exactly like Andy had wanted this to happen. She had been careful. She had always been careful. But life had an insidious way of finding means to exist despite the odds and she had been on the wrong side of those odds.

Andy’s phone rang, startling her out of her thoughts. She picked it up immediately, recognizing the shrill ringtone. Miranda was calling.

“Hello?” she asked in a strained voice. Her muscles were tense and her heart was beating faster than normal. She had worked herself up without really realizing it.

“Andrea, I’ve texted you twice. Roy and I are sitting outside your building.” Miranda’s voice was sharp and chiding and so very reminiscent of the cerulean lecture.

“Oh, um, sorry, Miranda, I guess I was just a little spaced out.”

She heard the pause on the other end of the line. “Yes, well, your presence would be appreciated, Andrea, before Roy gets a ticket for illegally parking.” The line clicked off in the next second.

Andy stared at the phone for a second before shaking her head. She had to be imagining things, but she swear Miranda’s voice had softened on her reply. But Miranda didn’t do that. She didn’t back down from being a bitch.

Whatever, she slipped her heels on and grabbed her coat and purse and was out the door and rushing down the stairs. Roy was waiting, leaning against the passenger’s side door. He smiled at Andy and walked her around the car, opening her door for her. Andy slipped inside and came face to face with Miranda. The muscles that had been tense enough to snap in her apartment finally relaxed just the tiniest bit. She sighed and let the warm leather seat hold her up.

“How are you doing today, Andrea?” Miranda asked, scrolling through the email on her Blackberry.

Andy thought that question over for a few seconds. It was a simple question, but right now nothing had a simple answer. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

Miranda turned to her then. “What was it that had you so distracted in your apartment, Andrea? You are normally very diligent about answering promptly, but there were a good twenty minutes between my messages and you didn’t respond.”

“I was just thinking.” She fidgeted with her hands in her lap.

“Andrea, I do believe you know I hate when people are vague.”

Andy had a hard time holding a snort back. Of course the woman who was the vaguest person she ever met would say something like that. It was totally Miranda.

“I was thinking about what I was going to do about everything. I still have no idea.” She looked out the window. “There’s really not a winning situation here. It’s not exactly an easy choice to make between screwed and screwed in a slightly different way.”

Miranda’s hand came to rest on top of one of Andy’s stilling the fidgeting that was still going on. “Andrea, wait until Martha lays out your options. She’s very thorough, there may be something that you hadn’t thought of yet.”

Andy watched the buildings of the Lower East Side whip past as Roy drove on. “How could there be, Miranda? I either keep the kid, get an abortion, or find someone to adopt the kid. Except I still don’t know which one of those I want to do, let along figured out any of the problems that go along with each one of them. For that I’d have to make a choice. Up until now my hardest choice was if I was going to go to law school and please my parents or follow my dreams to become a writer, and that wasn’t exactly that hard.”

Miranda squeezed her hand gently and didn’t say anything for a very long time. Andy looked at her from the side of her eye. She looked to be deep in thought. Andy wondered just what was running through her mind. Everyone underestimated Miranda because of what field she worked in, but anyone who worked at Runway knew differently. The woman was almost a genius in how she could twist and turn business and fashion together so easily, two opposing worlds worked together for her in ways no one else could mimic. To have her so deep in thought was an odd occurrence.

 “I said I would help you through with whatever choice you made, Andrea, and I meant that. Keep that in mind, but make the right choice for you. Martha will lay out the options as I said and somewhere in that head of yours you know what you want, it’s just hidden by doubt.” Miranda’s eyes were on her, intense as always, pinning her in place. “And doubt is something I thought I trained you out of by now. You are not that stuttering girl who walked into the Runway offices almost a year aog. You are a strong woman. Go with what feels right. It’s all you can do.”

Miranda stayed silent for a few seconds after that, looking over Andy’s face. Andy didn’t know what exactly she was looking for, but she must have found it because she turned away and continued on.

“Most people assume that the twins were planned, after all I was so late in having children and I’m Miranda Priestly. I plan everything, or so most people believe. Gregory had wanted children when we first married. I did not. Working for me, I think you can imagine who won out in the end. I cloaked in words of wanting to focus on my career, of course, and to an extent that was true. I was art director when Gregory and I married and the editor-in-chief of Runway was on his way out. I had my eye on the position ever since I had picked up my first Runway back in the East End and I wasn’t about ready to let it slip through my fingers. Three years later I was where I wanted to be, the freshly crowned queen of fashion when I found out I was pregnant.”

Miranda paused for a few seconds, shoving her Blackberry back into her purse. Her hands came back up and started to play with the rings on her fingers. It was the least composed Andy had ever seen the other woman save Paris.

“I was terrified that I would lose all that I had just gained. But mostly, I was terrified that I had nothing to give the girls. Not in the material wealth way, because I had more than enough of that for ten families to live happily on, but I was afraid I had no love to give. Andrea, I did not grow up in a good home. We were poor immigrants to England and my mother was a witch of a woman that loved no one at all. It made it even worse than it had to be. And I was afraid that I would be her. It took me a while to realize that was what hiding behind my career had been about. I set my mind to something and it is executed, as you well know. I would not have lost my job no matter what. But love to give? That’s something that can’t be gained no matter how you try. The thought crossed my mind to get rid of them, I won’t deny it, but that’s all it did. No matter how much I worried, or how often that thought came up I never seriously contemplated it. I knew I was going to keep those girls from the minute Martha told me that I was pregnant. The hard part was coming to terms with that decision. And perhaps that’s what you’re going through and perhaps it isn’t. We all drown differently I suppose.”

Andy looked at Miranda, blinking a few times. She wasn’t quite sure that what had just happened had really happened. Miranda had been so very god to her the past few days, sure, but she had just opened up to Andy in a big way. She knew the significance. No one knew anything about Miranda other than her work habits and about her divorce, still being finalized even with the strings Miranda had pulled. There was nothing about her past, certainly nothing so personal as fears about not being able to love.

She reached out and grabbed one of Miranda’s hands in a mirror of her earlier gesture. She squeezed gently, but said nothing. She wasn’t exactly sure there was anything to say in the face of that. She hoped that Miranda knew how thankful she was, though, to be let in like that not once, but twice. Miranda squeezed back, barely there, but it still was, and continued to stare out the window.

They pulled up at Martha’s office building again. Andy let go of Miranda’s hand with one last glance at the woman. There was so much about this that she didn’t understand, but she found that she was beginning not to care. Both of them got out and rode up to Martha’s office and walked inside.

Again, it was top notch treatment. Andy wasn’t quite sure if she could ever get used to it, being treated as one of the elite. She knew she shouldn’t considering. This would evaporate at any time Miranda wished it to.

Liz came in again, took her vitals all with a smile, and disappeared back out the door. Andy wasn’t nearly as nervous this time, waiting for Dr. Jones to come through the door. She was almost calm, or at least as close to it as she had been for a very long time. Her and Miranda sat in silence in the room, not uncomfortable at all, and waited.

Dr. Jones came in a little later, kind smile still in place, but a little more frazzled than the last time Andy had seen her.

“Ah, Andy, back again. Sorry for the wait, flu season is really starting to kick up and the upper crust is always so insular they always get sick all at once.” She flipped open Andy’s chart and looked at the vitals Liz had just taken. “Everything still looking good.” She looked at Andy again, sparing a millisecond’s glance to Miranda. “Have you decided at all what you would like to do, or would you like me to give you a rundown of all of the options that you have?”

Andy opened her mouth to tell Dr. Jones to give her options, but what came out instead was different. “I’m going to keep the baby.” She scowled the next second. She hadn’t meant to say that, but the more she turned the words over and over in her mind the more she realized that that was what she wanted to do. She would do what she needed. If that meant moving home to Ohio, then so be it, but she was keeping this child. She would make her dream of journalism come true no matter what. She had always been a hard worker and a baby did not change that.

Both of the other women in the room were surprised as well. Without seeing Miranda Andy knew that the older woman was sitting up just the slightest bit straighter, waiting for the stuttering, or whatever was to come next. It didn’t. Dr. Jones hid her surprise better, but her smile fell just for a half second before becoming just a little bigger than before.

“All right then, I’ve prepared a list of OB-GYNs in the area who do good work and will do pro bono work. The ones with stars are the ones with openings. They do most of their free work out of clinics, but I figured on your pittance of a salary it would be well worth it.” Dr. Jones glared at Miranda. “Really, Miranda, you need to pay the girls better so they don’t starve to death, despite Emily’s will to only live on cheese cubes.”

There was no rebuttal to that from Miranda. Andy almost didn’t believe it.

“Your first appointment should be with them as soon as possible, and from your last missed period it should be time to get your first ultrasound within the next month to month and a half. Of course your OB-GYN will go more over that. But, I’ll go ahead and give you the name of a good prenatal vitamin you need to start taking immediately.” She ripped off a sheet from her prescription pad and pulled out a thin file from behind Andy’s chart. She handed it to Andy before going on.

“In there is a good bunch on information on being pregnant, foods to eat, foods to avoid, exercise regulations, things of that sort. For now just basically keep doing what you’re doing with the diet modifications and you should be fine. And if that one is helping you along, I’m sure she’ll have some pointers to help you along the way. As long as she lets you sleep at normal hours and doesn’t call you at three a.m.”

Miranda snorted at that. Andy almost busted out laughing. Emily was going to get those calls just so Miranda could spite Martha, she knew, and Emily was going to kill Andy later. She couldn’t quite bring herself to care.

“If you have any questions between now and your first OB appointment, don’t hesitate to call my office. One of the girls will corner me eventually and call you back with an answer, usually within twenty-four hours. For what it’s going to be like, you’re going to have to ask that one.” She gestured back to Miranda. “My wife and I adopted. But I can answer any medical questions of course.”

Andy’s head was spinning just a bit, but she smiled at Dr. Jones. She thumbed open the folder and saw a myriad of colorful sheets of paper and pamphlets. She’d read over them after work. She shut the folder and looked back up at Dr. Jones.

“And of course regular visits to your regular doctor or me if Miranda wants to keep paying for dinner are also encouraged.”

“Thank you.” Andy smiled at the woman.

“Of course, dear. Anyone who can survive that one deserve a little help every now and again.” She came forward and shook Andy’s hand. “And with that, I have more flu patients to treat, but you take care of yourself and really, I mean it, call the office with questions.”

“I will.”

Dr. Jones looked over at Miranda and smirked. “See you for dinner on Friday.” And with that she left.

Miranda and Andy made their way back down to Roy again. They rode in silence to Runway to start their day of work. Andy was happy for now, still so very, very worried, but happy.

“Andrea?” Miranda asked, a few blocks from Runway.

“Yes?” Andy turned to look

“Thank you for listening.” She didn’t look at Andy while she spoke. Andy didn’t think the older woman had it in her.

“Always.” And just like she knew her answer about keeping the baby was true, she knew this answer was true as well.

Miranda sighed so quietly Andy almost missed it and she relaxed just slightly. Andy smiled, warmth filling her for a few minutes until the car pulled to a stop and Miranda was getting out, firing orders off as usual and another work day was started.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I'm not on break anymore, but I'm still going to try to update this story regularly while still filling the prompts I have on tumblr. So far, and it's only been two weeks so bear with me if i'm wrong, it's take about a week to fill a prompt and a week or so to churn on another chapter of this. So I'm aiming for an update every two weeks, depending on the length of the prompt and the length of the chapter, yada yada, slightly disclaimer-y stuff and such. So, bear with me and you've all been great so far with that, so enjoy.

Miranda walked into Smith and Wollensky on Friday night, cold wind swirling around her as the door closed. The hostess came forward, practically falling all over herself. Miranda just waved her off. They always gave her the same table when she was here, Miranda thought that they kept it purposely empty anymore just to deal with her rather capricious dining habits and lack of notice. She found she didn’t care as long as she had a table and decent food.

Martha was sitting at the table, waiting for her, on time as she always was. Miranda found herself smiling, or at least smiling as much as she allowed herself to in public. Martha spotted her and stood, stepping out from her chair to hug Miranda. Miranda hugged the woman back, not trying to maneuver the gesture into air kisses as she would normally with anyone else.

“Hello,” she said as she stepped back from the embrace.

Martha sank back into her chair and smirked up at Miranda. “Hi there.”

Miranda sat in the seat opposite and made a show of spreading out her napkin in her lap. She was glad to be at this dinner with Martha, she was, but she had a feeling given everything that had happened of late that Martha was going to question her until her Jimmy Choos fell off her feet. As much as she loved Martha, she never looked forward to her interrogations.

“So how have you been? Anything explode at Runway this last week?”

Miranda looked over at Martha. She wasn’t one to beat around the bush. That was one of the things that Miranda liked about her. If she was taking the roundabout way to something, Miranda should be wary. Instead, she relaxed back into her seat and nodded approvingly as a waiter poured some red wine into her glass. She took a sip and sent him away with a wave. It would do just fine.

“Nothing out of the ordinary happened I supposed. I work with people whose imaginations have shriveled up long ago, the designers are uninspired as always, and the photographers are over dramatic. But, despite that, everything for the next issue seems to be coming together nicely enough.”

Martha laughed. “Over dramatic, aren’t you calling the kettle black there, pot?”

Miranda scowled. “You and I are both well aware of the lengths that I go through in order to get the magazine to press on time. If I must act in a rather…overbearing fashion to get that done consistently, then I will.”

Martha shook her head. “Almost thirty years we’ve known each other and yet you still don’t change. Makes me wonder how you do it, especially after all that money you got.” She snorted.

“One could ask the same question of you. If I recall the diet of ramen and peanut butter than you lived on in med school accurately, you are doing quite well in comparison now.”

The waiter arrived to take their order. Miranda ordered her normal steak and Martha ordered some sort of mac’n’cheese dish that made Miranda scrunch her nose.

“You really ought to lay off the red meat, Miranda.” Martha shot her a disapproving look.

“Says the woman who just ordered a meal full of cheese and carbs.” Miranda arched an eyebrow.

“Hey, I only eat like that when you’re paying.”  She shrugged.

“If what you said to Andrea is any indication, then you might be eating a great deal more like this, then.”

“A few more hours in the gym to work everything off won’t hurt me.” There was a playful glint in Martha’s eyes, but Miranda could see past it, she just wasn’t sure what was lying underneath.

“Whatever you say.” Miranda rolled her eyes. “How is flu season going?”

“Same old, same old, everyone rich gets sick at the same time, and they always wonder why I can’t snap my fingers and make them better. Normally I just tell them that’s why they should’ve gotten their flu shots instead of ignoring me for a trip to Venice. They don’t take too kindly to that, but they can’t ever deny my logic.” She smirked.

Miranda scrunched her nose. “Why Venice. Such a dirty city, now Florence or Milan I could get behind.”

Martha just stared at her. “It was an example, Miranda. You know how people are about their shots. If they’re going to some exotic place they’re right at my door for the necessary shots, but ole flu shots don’t get the time of day.” She shook her head.

“What about Andrea? Can she get a flu shot? I remember you lecturing me about staying away from sick people when I had the twins.”

“Oh, she can, and she should get a shot if she hasn’t already. She can’t get the nasal drip, but she most definitely can get the shot.”

Miranda bit the inside of her lip. “I will have to ask her then if she’s gotten the shot yet this year. If her finances are as tight as she says they are then I thought think not.” She made a mental note to ask the girl tomorrow. Perhaps she would text her and ask after dinner just to make sure she didn’t forget.

“How have the girls been?” Martha asked, snapping Miranda out of her haze.

“Oh they’re fine. Doing well in school as always. Cassidy is determined to give up soccer for fencing and I’m more than a little apprehensive. I know that they take the utmost precaution, and yet, it’s still something rather resembling a sword.”

Martha waved her hand, dismissing her concerns. “She’s twelve, Miranda, you put her in lessons she’ll probably tire of them soon enough. Gabby went through soccer, lacrosse, basketball, and hockey before she settled on softball. It’s the age where they try all different things to find what they truly like. And if that turns out to be what she likes, well, I’m under no illusion that you’ll put your assistants to work finding the best and safest person out there to teach her.”

Miranda frowned, but found that she couldn’t disagree with Martha’s assessment. She always had been able to get to the true heart of things quickly. It was probably one of the things that made her such a good doctor.

“Fine, fine, perhaps you are right. I just thought soccer was bad enough, I suppose.” She took a sip of her wine.

“Uh huh, because it wasn’t girly enough, I know. We’ve been over that one.”

Miranda’s cheeks heated just a bit. She was sure that the makeup she had on would hide the blush though, thank god. “Yes, I do recall the rather…heated discussion we got into on how I shouldn’t force gender roles onto my children, along with a vast myriad of sources that you sat me down and _made_ me read. You know, most people in your position would’ve been black balled from ever practicing again in any first world country.”

Martha snorted. “Yeah, well I’m not anyone. I’ve been here to keep your ass in line since the eighties.”

Miranda shuddered. “Don’t remind me of that ridiculous decade.”

“Uh huh, that’s only because you don’t want to remember how much hairspray it took to keep your hair in that god awful poofy monstrosity.” She laughed.

The waiter set down their first course while Miranda attempted to set the other woman on fire. Martha dug in like she wasn’t in imminent danger. She hummed in pleasure.

“I love this place. The food is always divine.”

Miranda let a breath out through her nose. Well, at least on that point they could agree. She took a bite of her own small salad and sighed. Food after a long, long day was always such a comfort. She knew a great many of the Runway gaggle would die if they knew she actually enjoyed food, but Miranda saw no reason not to, it was fuel after all and for as much money as she was paying for it, it better well taste good and she should enjoy it.

“How is Gabby?” Miranda asked after she had chewed her first bite.

“Same old, junior year is kicking her butt a bit. She took an upper level writing seminar for one of her gen ed requirements because it sounded interesting, but with the rest of her work in her other classes and her internship she’s juggling a lot. I told her she’d regret it, but I’m a mother, what do I know.” She shrugged good naturedly. “Good thing about her being twenty-one is now she admits readily when I was right.” She laughed. “I don’t want her to struggle, but being right and being acknowledged for it is such an odd feeling after her fifteen year old self.”

Miranda hummed at that, indicating she heard, but her mind was off in another world, thinking about what the girls would be like at fifteen. Absolute terrors probably, considering they had her headstrong genes and Gregory's impulsive ones. She dreaded the thought. But then again, hopefully she had done enough that the girls would turn out all right no matter the level of eventual teenage angst. She could only hope.

She had fleeting thoughts of Andrea’s future child, wondering what it would be like in its teenage years. All she could picture was a small version of Andrea with an excessive amount of eyeliner. She knew she shouldn’t find the image cute, but it did have a certain visual appeal. The girl did have such big eyes after all.

“What’s the writing seminar she’s in again?”

“Something on the conflict between Israel and Palestine, I forget the exact name of the class, but that’s what it’s about. She talks me through the different elements when she needs to study for a quiz or needs feedback on a paper. Nina still hasn’t quite mastered the art of giving anything but gushing praise to Gabby.” She smiled, warm, content and loving. She popped the last bit of salad in her mouth and set the plate aside.

“Hmm, I wonder if Andrea knows anything about that conflict. Seeing her ambition to be a journalist, I would think so. I’m sure she would offer to help Gabby if you asked. Surely it would get me out of at least one dinner.”

Martha shook her head. “Nope, you aren’t getting off the hook that easily. I’m still doing you a favor. But if it would make Andy feel better about this whole thing by being able to contribute something, then I wouldn’t be against her helping Gabby if she wanted it.” She shrugged.

“She would like that. She feels unduly stressed when she feels she hasn’t earned something.” Miranda was already off and running on the idea. Gabby would agree to the help if Miranda suggested it rather persuasively. Then again, with a heavy class load it wouldn’t take much persuading, she thought.

Martha nodded. “Hard worker, I noticed that about her just from talking to her.”

Miranda hummed her affirmative.

The plates from their first course were whisked away from the table and their entrees were set down.

“And Nina?” Miranda asked, picking up her steak knife and slicing in the meat before her. She waved off the waiter once again once she had deemed it acceptably cooked.

“Not so great this week.” Martha picked at her food for a minute. “She lost one of her pro bono cases. As a psychologist she’s prepared for that eventuality of course, but it’s still hard, especially since she worked with this girl for the last five years or so. Her funeral is next week and she plans to go, but I think she’ll be in a funk for a little while.”

Miranda reached out and squeezed Martha’s hand. “Give her my condolences.”

Martha nodded and smiled at Miranda, a small brittle thing. “I will. She might die of shock, but I will.”

Miranda refrained from rolling her eyes. Martha had always relied on humor to clear the air after something heavy. She supposed she had to have some sort of coping mechanism as a doctor.

“You and I both know that is not true,” she huffed. “You, and therefore Nina, are important parts of my life, not Runway staff. I’m free to show emotion around you. Though sometimes I think you abuse that privilege. Nina is the only other one who can keep _you_ in line besides myself.”

Martha snorted. “I’ll agree with the Nina part of that statement. When have you ever kept _me_ in line?”

Miranda arched an eyebrow. “I recall in your residency days, I think it was at the end of your second year, that you had the smart idea to mix tequila and vodka together after a particularly bad shift. I’m the one who took the alcohol away from you before you were on the floor in a coma.”

“Second year was a nightmare, do you blame me?”

“Yes, your next shift was three days after that and you certainly didn’t need to spend that time in the hospital.”

“Fine, fine, you saved my ass. I’ll give you that, but name one time after that. That was the eighties, it was a different time and I was young and stupid. But when I was older, one time?”

“Fred Marlow.”

Martha shut up immediately. “Alright, fine, we both keep each other in line. Is that a fair compromise for you?”

Miranda nodded. “I suppose.”

“You just need me around to keep you in check at Runway and maybe people wouldn’t run in terror.” Martha grinned.

“I find that anymore, Andrea does a rather fine job of that, perhaps not to your specifications, but I believe I’ve become…calmer at points. I can be calmer when my life runs so smoothly. The girl really is a godsend.”

Martha leveled her with a stare. “Ok, Miranda, I have to ask you what’s going on with her. It’s one thing to like an employee and help her out once, but that’s not what this is for you, I know it. Not only have you been to the office with her twice and offered to keep our bargain going where you pay for dinner for me, you’ve mentioned her five separate times the entire time we’ve been at dinner and you’re only halfway through your steak. And from the look on your face at points you’ve thought about her more than that. You never mention anyone that frequently unless it’s the girls. So, what in the world is going on?”

Miranda was taken aback by the observation. She thought back on their conversation and found that it was indeed true, she had mentioned Andrea a fair number of times and had thought about her even more than that. She scowled, but surely that didn’t mean anything. Andrea was a good assistant, and she cared for her in a way. She just wanted to help the girl because she was truly one of the best assistants she’d ever had.

“Nothing is going on, Martha, I’m just helping the poor girl out. Her boyfriend was a glorified man child and she’s struggling. I’m allowed to care for my assistants, am I not?” She gazed imperiously at the woman in front of her.

“Sure, you’re allowed, Miranda, but in the entire thirty years I’ve known you, you’ve never done something like this. You’re a wonderful person to those close to you, and you’re fair to your employees, if a little overbearing, but I understand that’s for the benefit of the magazine, but you never get close to your employees. Never once, even when you were a peon working your way up. Sure, this girl maybe be your best assistant, but from the stories, so is Emily, and you and I both know that you wouldn’t be here with Emily. You’d leave a list of physicians lying on her desk without her knowledge, certainly, but you wouldn’t go with her to appointments and you definitely wouldn’t pay for them in a roundabout way. I’m your best friend and I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m not sure you do either.”

Miranda set her silverware aside, no longer hungry. “I’m not sure what you’re implying with all this talk.”

Martha threw up her hands. “I don’t think I do either. I’m just trying to understand and I can’t. If I understood maybe I could imply things, but.” She shrugged.

Miranda stared at her friend for a long moment. Her brain was trying to process what Martha could possibly be thinking. Martha had always been a rather open book to her, but now was not the case. She had no idea what was going on and it unsettled her. She had taken a special interest in Andrea, certainly, but the girl was special. She was like Miranda herself and unlike her at the same time. She could be an influential, world changing woman, if only someone helped her along the way. She didn’t understand what was wrong with that someone being her. Perhaps it was a little out of character, but not enough to be worrying.

“Let’s just put the whole thing on the back burner for now,” Martha finally said, pushing her plate back. “And you totally owe a slice of chocolate cake too.”

Miranda smirked at that. “Only if you split it with me.”

Martha waved her away. “Fine, fine, as long as there’s chocolate.” She laughed. “God, do you remember those stupid little cheap chocolates we used to live off of because we couldn’t afford anything else, not even Hersey’s?”

And then the dinner was back on track and Miranda relaxed into her seat again, smiling at the memory that Martha had brought up. But in the back of her mind, her thoughts were still turning over and over trying to figure out a problem that she wasn’t sure had an answer.


	5. Chapter 5

Andy returned to work on Monday a little more calm and collected. It had been almost a week since she had found out that she was pregnant. Almost half a week since she had said she was going to keep the baby. She’d had time to come to terms with everything now. And she was still worried, so very worried about everything, but as Miranda had said, once she set her sights on a goal there was no way that she would be denied. Perhaps Miranda’s comments in Paris weren’t so off base.

She sat down at her desk and got everything ready for the day. Everyone around her was in early and scrambling around in a panic. There was a run through at one o’clock that Miranda would inevitably move up to at least eleven at the latest and people wanted to be done much before then just in case. Andy never had quite understood why they waited until the last minute to do their jobs. Maybe it had something to do with inspiration and the lack thereof, that she could understand, but if it was laziness, then she could at least partly see why Miranda liked to spring time table changes on the magazine as a whole.

Miranda herself wasn’t due until nine, though, just as with the run through, Andy thought that might be up for debate too. The girls went off to school was seven forty-five. There was no need for Miranda to come in late today. Andy felt herself smiling at the thought of seeing Miranda a little earlier today. They hadn’t spoken much over the weekend, but all of the previous week she had just been so supportive it warmed Andy from the inside. It was so nice to have someone who encouraged her after so long of lukewarm friends and difficult exes.

The time past quickly in a haze of confirming Miranda’s reservations for the day, a lunch meeting at Nobu, a fitting for the dress she’d wear to the annual new year’s ball, an afternoon meeting with a photographer that was going to be featured in one of the upcoming issues, a typical day for Miranda. By the time Emily came in with coffee and Miranda’s daily stack of magazines, just waiting for Roy to drive Miranda the last couple of blocks to Elias-Clarke, Andy had most of her work done. She smiled it was always a good day when she didn’t have to play catch up after Miranda’s first round of orders.

Nigel’s normal shout for everyone to gird their loins rang out and Andy smiled. He walked in and placed a few stacks photos on her desk and smiled at her.

“Looking chipper today, Six, not so green around the gills.”

Now that he mentioned it, the morning sickness hadn’t been so bad today. She’d thrown up once at her apartment right before she shoved some eggs in her mouth before charging out the door, but that was it. Wow, it really was going to be a good day. She smiled wider.

“Nope, good to go today.”

Nigel nodded. “Good, good. These are the prints from the Winter in the Park shoot. Have her look over them and get back to me. I’m sure there will be a couple she wants the colors tweaked on.”

“Ok.” Andy collected everything together with her little notepad. She’d give Miranda the photos after her first round of orders.

“And with that, I’ll be gone before hurricane Miranda appears.” He chuckled and was back through the glass doors only a minute before Miranda herself whirled in, throwing her coat and bag on Emily’s desk as per normal.

Andy hurried into Miranda’s office after her, scribbling down her orders for the first part of the day.

“Tell Nigel I want those proofs on my desk before the run through. Move the run through up to eleven, I will not take excuses if anything is late or unfinished. If that means I have to fire someone then so be it. Confirm all of my meetings and reservations. Call Hermes and order a new round of scarves, something in the light blue and grey line, winter-ish colors if you will. Patricia needs to go to the vet soon for her shots to be updated. I expect an appointment for her before week’s end. Cassidy needs a math tutor. The one at Dalton is not doing a satisfactory job and as bright as Cassidy is, algebra at ten seems to not quite click and she refuses to listen to her sister.” Miranda sighed. “I told her a B was completely respectable, but wants the higher grade and who am I not to facilitate that.” She shook herself. “Call Westwood and let them know I want to move up our meeting for their showing to next week. Move around what you must. Prada has an order that must be picked up. And I need a copy of Runway’s budget from last year. Irv is on the warpath yet again. You think he would’ve learned after Paris.” Miranda rolled her eyes and tossed her head, throwing the white forelock off to the side of her face.

Andy nodded, having scribbled everything down in a barely legible hand. She turned to go accomplish the first list of tasks, but Miranda stopped her.

“Andrea, sit.”

Andy scrunched her brow before turning around. This was how all of their conversations had started about her pregnancy, but why would they be talking about that now? She hadn’t started calling around to the free clinics yet to set up her appointment for her first checkup. Miranda would have known that. She had told her last week that she was waiting a few days, taking in the choice she had made and all the consequences before moving full speed ahead.

When she sat down Miranda picked up her coffee and sipped it, looking over the rim at Andy. “Have you called around this morning for an appointment?” Miranda asked, voice quiet, aware that Emily was probably listening. She was an incredible gossip.

Andy shook her head. “Haven’t had time yet.”

“Good.” Miranda rustled around in her purse and pulled out a card. She slid it towards Andy. “Tell the receptionist there that you are a friend of mine. She will take pains to make an appointment for you. The doctor is the one that delivered the twins and I trust her implicitly. I hate to think what kind of care you would get in some sort of free clinic, or what diseases you could catch there.” Miranda’s lip curled and she shivered, movement just barely visible.

Andy stared at the card in her hand. It was on thick paper, textured and rich. Another high end doctor, obviously. “Miranda I can’t.”

Miranda hushed her with a wave of her hand. “Andrea, you do more than enough for me to justify a few doctor’s visits. The money is of no consequence, especially the pittance we pay in copays on our insurance.” Blue eyes stared at her, entirely earnest. “I really do want you and…” she trailed off and glanced down at Andrea’s stomach, a smile just barely ghosting across her face. “to have the best care there is out there. Martha is right, Elias-Clarke does not pay assistants enough anyway.”

“Miranda I just can’t take money from you like this. You’re already taking up the visits with Dr. Jones. I couldn’t possibly.”

Again Miranda silenced her. “There is something you can do for me in that matter. Andrea, how much do you know about the conflict between Israel and Palestine?”

“I mean, I always keep up to date on what’s happening over there and I wrote a research paper on the origin of the conflict once, but I’m not an expert by any means. Why?”

“Martha’s daughter Gabby is a junior in college in an upper level writing seminar based around the conflict. She’s struggling and needs assistance. Gabby is a science major through and through and writing doesn’t come easily to her. You, on the other hand, are a very talented writer. Become her tutor for the remainder of the semester. It is my understanding that college tutors get paid a good wage per hour. Consider that in exchange for the doctor’s visits if you must.”

Andy tilted her head to the side. “Uh, ok. I’m not exactly sure how that pays you back, though.”

“She’s my goddaughter, Andrea. Doing something for her is doing something for me.”

Andy nodded slowly. “Alright, then, if you’ll get me in contact with her, I’ll gladly help her out.”

“Good, good. I’ll give you her contact information later.” Miranda set her coffee down. “Now tell me, have you gotten your flu shot yet?”

“Uh, no?”

“That won’t do. Pregnant women need their flu shots. Martha will take care of it, I’m sure. Make that appointment after you talk to the OB-GYN. Chances are you won’t even need an appointment for such things, but better to be certain.”

Andy didn’t even know what was happening right then. She was a little bit floored. Sure, Miranda had been a lifesaver the week before and helpful to a fault, but this was just above and beyond. “Yes, Miranda,” was all she could say.

“Good. That’s all.”

Andy blinked and stood slowly, making her way from the room in a daze. Emily looked her over and cocked an eyebrow. Her face clearly said that she believed that Andy had just gotten yet another chewing out and was so very smug about it. Anymore since Paris Emily had been the one getting scolding from Miranda, not that Andy had been completely immune, but things had shifted in Paris between them even before the pregnancy. There was a mutual respect there now that had only been one way before.

She let Emily think whatever she wanted to think and walked to her desk and sat down. She had to call both doctors, but then again there was a rather long lists of tasks to get done this morning too. And she knew what to do to get everything done for Miranda. She wasn’t quite sure about everything else.

And so she took out another sheet in her notebook, wrote down the errands that would have to be done out of the building, and handed it to Emily. Emily huffed, hating that she had to be the one to fetch everything, but Miranda had made it so last week. At least she was off her crutches now so it wasn’t so difficult. Once the red head had gone in a whirl of nervous energy Andy sat down and started to google respectable tutors for Cassidy.

But her mind kept wandering back to Miranda, still so very confused. Helpful was one thing, but she couldn’t even figure out what this was. Especially in relation to Miranda. For Miranda, helpful was not making a disparaging remark on a bad hair day, at least when those people weren’t the twins. And her whole reasoning about not allowing Andy to become like her only extended so far, didn’t it? And paying for her doctor’s visits that weren’t to a close friend was definitely across that line. So was asking about whether she had her flu shots. Miranda expected everyone to be fully self-sufficient.

Her mind spun round and round. She turned away from her computer and stared at the surface of her desk. Finally her eyes saw the photos in front of her. Shit. She had forgotten to give Miranda the photos that Nigel had dropped off in her confusion. She sighed and stood up, scooping up the photos and walking back into Miranda’s office.

Blue eyes looked up at her, a haughty brow arched. “I don’t recall calling for you.”

That settled Andy’s mind a little bit. Even with everything she wasn’t immune to the snark. It was comforting. “Sorry, I just, I had these earlier and forgot to give them to you.” Andy placed the photos in front of her and turned from the room.

“Thank you, Andrea.”

Andy blinked again, shook her head just slightly and walked out. Wonders would never cease.

 

When she was done with the list of tasks Miranda had given her, Cassidy had a tutor and everyone who needed called had been called. Emily wasn’t back yet from Prada and Hermes. All she had to do was man the phones until the next slew of orders. She tapped her fingers on the desk. Might as well call Dr. Jones’s office about the flu shot.

She picked up her cell phone and dialed. Within ten minutes she had a pseudo-appointment for over her lunch break. She hoped against hope that Liz would be the one to give her the shot. She avoided them most years unless strictly necessary. She shivered hard. Needles. She’d have to take a slightly long lunch, but she figured Miranda wouldn’t mind since she’d demanded that Andy go in the first place.

She drew out the business card and looked at the number for Miranda’s OB-GYN. If called and made an appointment she was really accepting all of this. Did she want to? She didn’t want to be beholden to anyone, but Miranda wasn’t making it like that. She was almost making it like a favor to a friend in a way. It wasn’t like Miranda didn’t have the disposable income to do so, but that was beside the point. This was her boss, her cold, sarcastic, capricious, multi-layered, caring, and so very hard to understand boss.

But she wanted Miranda to be by her side through this as her friend, her only friend at the moment, not that that mattered much. Miranda would have been the best person to help her through this even if her other friends had been talking to her. Somehow it seemed she cared more. And to accept that Miranda was going to be with her through this meant to accept sweeping gestures like this. Andy thought that if she really pushed she could force the issue and end up going to one of the free clinics that Dr. Jones had given her information for. But she really didn’t want to. Free clinics were wonderful, but if she had the option to let another person get the care they needed instead of taking their place when she had other options. There would be other, better things to push the issue on later, Andy was sure of it.

She punched in the number and hit the call button. Two rings later a woman with a smooth voice answered.

“Dr. Patel’s office, how may I help you?”

“Hi, I’d like to make an appointment.” Andy bit her lip and wondered if she should throw Miranda’s name out now or wait until later. Later, she decided, when it fit into the conversation well. It wouldn’t seem so much like name dropping then, that’s what usually worked for her.

“Name?”

“Andrea Sachs.”

There was clicking of a keyboard in the background. “I don’t have you in our database. Dr. Patel currently isn’t taking any new patients right now. I can however refer you to a few of her colleagues who are now.”

“Oh wow, really, I’m so sorry, but Miranda Priestly recommended Dr. Patel to me when she found out I was pregnant. She said she was the best in town, but I had no idea she wasn’t taking any new patients. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Ma’am could you stay on the line for just a minute please?”

“Of course.” Andy smiled. Miranda’s name always worked wonders anywhere in New York. Then again, Miranda herself had said this would happen. She wondered what in the world she’d done to get the doctor under her thumb. She wondered if Miranda would tell her if she asked.

Three minutes of hold music later the woman picked up the phone again. “Miss Sachs?”

“Yes?”

“It seems we do have the space to squeeze you in after all. Now you said you were pregnant, have you been to your family doctor for confirmation?”

Andy went through the rest of the information the woman needed easily. By the end of the phone call she had an appointment set for the next week. Her first appointment for her OB. Andy sat back and flipped her cell phone around in her hands for a few seconds. She had accepted that this was all real before, but there was just something about this that made it _more_ real.

She sighed. She was really and truly doing this. Andy set her phone down on her desk in the little cubby she’d designated for it and went back to work. At least now there were a few emails to sort through to get her mind off of everything. Overwhelming wasn’t even beginning to cut it.

The run through came and went in the flurry of colors and clothes racks. She listened to Miranda cutting down a few people with a small smile on her face. Miranda was almost funny with her insults when you weren’t the one standing in the line of fire. Dry, deadpan comments were something that Andy had always found amusing. Warmth blossomed in her chest, sitting there thinking of Miranda. She really was an amazing woman, if a little prickly.

Everyone scurried out at the end. Miranda dramatically exited her office, calling for her coat and bag. Andy shot up and grabbed both items while Emily looked on, typing out another email to a young designer that Andy really couldn’t stand. When she helped Miranda into her coat she picked up her note pad. Miranda always fired off another round of orders right before she went to a meeting.

She didn’t disappoint. “Call and confirm with Jemma that dinner tonight is at seven. I will be out of the office no later than six, I don’t care who gets bumped to tomorrow if something runs over. I expect the two of you will keep everything running on time to make sure that that does not happen. Call Alexander and tell him that I need his samples in order to put him in the next spread. The budget report that Irv is hounding me for is on my desk. Emily, you will take that to him and you will make it clear that I will not talk to him anymore on the subject of money this quarter. Our revenue so far outweighs our spending it’s laughable. We’ve paid for Auto Universe’s running budget for the next year alone with something spare. Make sure the makeup department knows that I want test shots of their proposed looks for the next photo shoot. Call Dolce and Gabbana and inquire if their ad department is just incompetent or if they really want that ad space they bought. God knows there are a hundred other companies that want it. I will be back no later than four thirty and I want coffee when I get back. And Andrea?”

Andy perked up. “Yes, Miranda?”

“Have you called the people I asked you to?” She cocked an eyebrow.

“I’ve done everything you asked Miranda.” She smiled keeping it purposely vague in front of Emily. She liked the red head and all, but she was a horrible gossip and Andy still needed some time to sit with this decision before she let anyone else in on it.

“Good. Andrea, you will deliver the Book tonight.” And with that she was out of the office in a swirl of lightly floral perfume.

Andy pouted for a good half a second before sitting back. She really hadn’t missed Book duty, but then again Miranda probably had some reason or other for making her do it after Dr. Jones’s orders for her to get plenty of rest. She glanced over at Emily. Maybe a conversation away from listening ears. Or maybe not. It was Miranda after all.


	6. Chapter 6

Andy turned the key in the front door of the townhouse and walked in quietly, heels barely making any noise on the hardwood floor. And yet Miranda still heard her anyway. The woman had preternatural hearing, Andy swore.

“Andrea,” Miranda voice drifted in from her study.

Andy strode forward and found Miranda curled up in an overstuffed chair, laptop perched securely on the wide arm of the chair and her legs tucked underneath her. If Andy dared to call the Dragon Lady cute, well, it would’ve been a cute scene. She handed Miranda the Book and sat down in a chair across from Miranda. It was the one she had seen the woman in the last time she’d been in this particular room, the one Miranda had commanded her to go to Paris with her. It wasn’t exactly her favorite room within Miranda’s house to be sure.

She looked up to find Miranda staring at her intently, glasses tracing her lips, the lipstick from earlier in the day either removed or worn off. “You’ll need new clothes soon. If you would prefer to hide the pregnancy until you are ready to tell everyone at Runway that will constitute a different wardrobe than something that will merely fit. I have designer options lined up for both.”

Andy took a sharp breath. God she hadn’t even thought about clothes yet. “Will I really start to show that soon?”

Miranda nodded. “You will. I started showing a bit earlier of course because of the twins, but between three and four months you will. And since it’s already been two, it will be sooner rather than later. Especially since your clothes are already a bit snug.”

She ran her hand through her hair. It was the end of the day, the mess she just made of her hair really didn’t matter. “They make designer maternity wear?” Andy snorted. “That doesn’t seem like something that actually exists.”

“Mmm, I’ll admit many designers do not do maternity collections, but they are out there if one knows where to look. What, Andrea, did you think I wore Walmart maternity wear while I was pregnant?” Miranda arched an eyebrow.

“No, but then again you have designers who would die to have your wear something of theirs. I’m just a nobody to them. The new Emily.” She shrugged.

“You are much more than the new Emily and certainly more than a nobody.” Miranda’s gaze was enough for Andy to back down from arguing the point. She was a nobody, but she was fine with that. Not everyone got to be Miranda Priestly. She would make a name for herself when she finally moved on to journalism, whenever that may be.

“Now, it still stands, would you like to hide the pregnancy for a bit or would you rather tell everyone and rip off the Band-Aid as it were.”

Andy shook her head. “Um, yeah, I’d like to have a bit to tell everyone. I just kind of became ok with it over the weekend. The continued headspace to deal with everything on my own would be nice. Maybe after figuring out some things I’ll be more enthusiastic about telling people, but for now, no.”

“Understandable.” Miranda stood up. “Come on then.” And she strode out of the room, bare feet barely making a sound.

Andy shot up and followed her, wondering what in the world was going on. Miranda led her up the steps of the townhouse onto the second floor. They walked through the hall where Andy had come across Stephen and Miranda fighting. She shivered remembering the look on Miranda face that night. Murder would have been a kindness if Miranda had truly gotten ahold of her, she was sure. Harry Potter was bad, but she was sure that was much better than the alternatives Miranda had thought about in the moment.

She led them both into what looked like a bedroom, decorated in warm earth tones that made it feel cozy. On the bed was enough clothing to fill her closet twice over in her apartment. And it all clicked into place just why Miranda had drug them up here.

“Miranda—”

Miranda cut her off before she even got out more than a word of protest. “Andrea, if you’re on a shoestring budget already do you really think you would be able to afford any clothing, let alone the type of clothing you need to work at Runway? If you went back to Target originals you would inevitably draw undue attention to yourself, which I know you don’t want. People would ask questions and someone would figure it out before you wanted.”

Andy stared at the other woman in surprise. It was a bit freaky that she’d predicted what Andy was going to say before she even said it. Then again, it was Miranda so was it really that out of the ordinary? Probably not. She sighed.

“Besides, if you are worried about expenditure of my own money despite what I have told you repeatedly, I didn’t spend any money at all to get these.” She waved her hand over the bed. “Surely you realize that by calling designers myself and expressing interest in their collections, especially ones that do not get much attention such as maternity wear, any sane designer would have thrown free samples at me with glee.”

Andy bit her lip. No she actually hadn’t thought of that, but now that Miranda mentioned it, it made perfect sense. After all, how often was she on the receiving end of cast offs Miranda didn’t want that the designers had foisted upon her.

“Ok.”

Miranda nodded. “Good. Strip then, we have a great many clothes to get through and you still need your rest.”

Andy stared at the other woman, convinced she hadn’t heard her right. Strip? Um. Miranda may be used to people just changing in front of her after years in the fashion industry, but Andy wasn’t a model and would never be. She liked to change in the privacy of her own home, or at least an empty room.

“Andrea, you know how I am with glacial paces.”

She wondered if this was one of the times she should push against Miranda’s wishes or if she should just leave it. Miranda was a woman after all and to try on clothes she wouldn’t have to lose her bra or underwear. It would really just be like a bikini. Another sigh escaped her and she pulled the shirt she was wearing over her head, folded it quickly and set it on the chest of drawers at the end of the bed. As soon as she was done Miranda already had a shirt in her hand.

“I think I generally stuck to what I know looks good on you, but some of the new lines that I had to incorporate into your wardrobe for the express purposes of hiding your stomach I have a feeling might not fare well on you.”

Andy pulled the shirt on and smoothed out the wrinkles. It was flowy and settled around her loosely and ironically enough it was a brilliant shade of cerulean. She wondered if Miranda had chosen the shade purposefully or if it was just a coincidence. Andy looked at Miranda to find just the barest smirk on the other woman’s face. Definitely on purpose then. She felt like groaning and laughing all at the same time. Of course it was on purpose. It was Miranda. She would remember the most humiliating lecture of Andy’s life. Only now it almost felt like an inside joke.

She shrugged just slightly and looked at herself in the mirror across the room. She didn’t think she looked bad in the shirt. It was a bit different than she normally wore, but then normally she didn’t need to hide a baby bump. She waited for Miranda’s opinion though before getting too attached to the shirt. A nod from the woman and Andy smiled. Well, one down.

She took off the shirt and Miranda had another in her hand, taking the first from her.

“Roy will drop off the ones that fit you well tomorrow after you return home.”

“Ok, thanks.” She really hadn’t looked forward to lugging home bags and bags on the subway. She slipped on the next shirt and held back a lip curl. It so did not look good on her. Light pink was not her color, though she was sure that Miranda had another name for the color, no matter what it looked horrendous.

“No, no, I don’t think melon looks good on you.”

Andy held in a laugh. She wondered how Miranda remembered so many names for so many different colors and how she even spotted the difference between some of them. She shrugged and pulled off the shirt, not sad to see it go, wherever Miranda even put it. Another shirt was there before she could think much.

“So you were successful in obtaining an appointment with Dr. Patel?” Miranda asked, surveying the next shirt Andy had put on, an emerald green empire waist this time. She nodded again and the process started over.

“Yeah, the appointment is next week on Thursday. Since I’m about two months in they’ll do another round of blood work and a PAP smear.” Andy’s nose scrunched at that. She really hated those things. “Just a regular routine exam really, I guess. I’m going to do a bit more research on everything to make sure there aren’t any questions I want to have answered while I’m there, but other than that seems like it won’t be bad.”

“Good.” Miranda’s eyes flicked up to hers in the mirror, tugging on a shirt Andy apparently didn’t have on quite right almost absently. “Would you like me to come to this appointment as well?”

Andy nodded. “Yeah, that would be great.” A little bit of tension that she had been holding onto relaxed. She really didn’t want to go to the first OB appointment alone. She could manage the next round all by herself, but not the first one, not when everything was still so precarious.

Miranda seemed to relax a bit too. “Acceptable. Move my schedule around accordingly them tomorrow.”

“Will do.” Andy bit her lip for a second before deciding to ask. “So what exactly does Dr. Patel owe you that her office is trained to respond to your name and bend over backwards?”

Miranda arched one perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Who says she owes me anything at all?”

Andy looked at Miranda, expression deadpan.

“Oh fine, if you want to say that she owes me anything at all, it’s her rather…elevated status as a doctor. I wasn’t always Miranda Priestly Editor-in-Chief. Once upon a time I went to midlevel doctors like everyone else. Dr. Patel was one of those doctors. And as you know I prize loyalty perhaps above all else and so those who are loyal to me are rewarded, if only in a roundabout way. You would be amazed what a few positive words about a doctor will do for their reputation when it comes from the right mouth. Dr. Patel only acknowledges what has come about through no true effort of my own. I only spoke the truth. She is a wonderful doctor. People just listened because of who I was, no more or no less. I do, however, appreciate every favor that the woman has granted me in return and I believe she realizes this. There is a great mutual respect between the two of us, I believe.”

Andy considered what Miranda had just said. It made sense, at least from Miranda’s point of view. She wondered how Dr. Patel actually felt about the whole arrangement, but she wouldn’t ever get that side of the story, so her curiosity was sated for now.

“Oh, ok.”

“I know you were upset over my treatment of Nigel in Paris, and I do realize this. It wasn’t pleasant for me either. But Nigel will be given his due recompense as soon as I find an opportunity that suits him.”

Andy looked into Miranda’s face. The other woman wasn’t looking at her, but at the pants Andy was now in, frowning at them. They would go soon, Andy knew. But the woman looked completely sincere about what she’d said. Nigel had been uncertain and she’d been downright skeptical, but now here was Miranda bending over backwards for her and she hadn’t done nearly the amount that Nigel had done for her. Nigel would have his day it seemed and that soothed something inside her that she hadn’t realized had still hurt.

“I believe you.”

It was such a simple sentence, but the way Miranda reacted, looking up to Andy, obviously checking to see if she had heard the other woman right and then to check if she was sincere, it was something more. It broke Andy’s heart a bit to see. How was it that a woman who had everything in the world didn’t have someone to tell her they believed in her? Or maybe it was that she never heard the other people who did. She couldn’t quite believe that Martha would let Miranda go without some sort of assurance that she was indeed believed in.

“Yes, well,” Miranda said, shaking off the open expression that had slipped through her normal mask. “I have no idea what in the world the designer was thinking with these pants, but they are not to be worn. They only look pretty on the hanger and of what use is that to anyone. Change.”

Andy let the moment slip by, stripping out of the pants as efficiently as possible. Miranda had emotions like everyone else, but she understood more than anyone that the other woman liked to deny that fact as much as possible. Pushing would get her nowhere.

“I never liked light wash jeans anyway,” Andy said, handing them over.

Miranda just nodded and Andy smiled, just a tiny thing, but it was there. She felt like in that nod she’d just won a little secret from Miranda, the kind that didn’t hurt. And she liked those the best.

“Dark wash have always looked better on you.” Another pair of pants were handed over and the process continued once more.

 

Andy ended up with at least a couple weeks of serviceable outfits from the impromptu fashion show with Miranda even with Miranda’s exacting clothing standards. Paired with what was already in Andy’s wardrobe she could make it stretch for a couple more at least until she really got bigger. But by then there would be no point in hiding and she wasn’t about to take flak from the clackers that she wasn’t breaking the bank spending all her money on clothing she would use only for a few months of her life before being rendered completely useless again. Right now anything and everything extra she had would be going into savings for the inevitable expenses ahead.

She sat at Runway on Friday at the end of the week with a smile on her face. The work was done for the day really, Miranda was already out of the office, at one last meeting before she would be going home to spend the weekend with the girls. Andy found it sweet that the divorce from Stephen seemed to be bringing them a bit closer again. Miranda loved the girls to death, but a rough home life did have the habit of straining even the strongest of relationships and Stephen for the last few months had definitely made things rough. Andy quelled the urge to punch the bastard. She really would get nowhere with that urge except in jail and she really, really didn’t want to end up in jail, especially pregnant. She shivered.

She scrolled through a few last minute workday emails, but none of them were actually important enough to reply to. She trashed them and clicked over to the internet browser. While she was still here for the remainder of the work day she might as well get a bit more research done. She pulled up google and started to search for reputable websites on pregnancy. She would be prepared for this first appointment no matter what.

Across the room Emily sat tapping on her keyboard, no doubt emailing or IMing Serena about whatever fashion faux pas was the talk and laughing about it. She wondered if Emily would ever realize that Serena stared at her like she was her first meal after a month of starving. They worked well enough together Andy thought it would work as more. Then again, Emily was so hung up on Miranda maybe not.

She scrolled through the first few results. She had already looked up the schedule of testing that she would undergo for the pregnancy. The medical aspect of everything had been her first stop on research since there was just so much to research. There was still more to go, she hadn’t looked up anything on hospitals and what to expect and what her options at the end of her pregnancy were, but for now she had laid that by the wayside to look up the changes she’d be going through week by week. Considering on and off all day she had felt like she was about to fall asleep standing up she figured it was a worthy past time.

Morning sickness was the first thing listed for the seventh week of pregnancy. Yeah, she’d already totally been there done that more than once today even though it hadn’t been a super bad day. Mood swings not so much. She thanked god for that. The last thing the office needed was two highly charged women causing terror. Though she highly doubted that she could actually make anyone shake in their boots like Miranda did. She smiled at the thought. Breast soreness, yeah that had been kicking in, but then her barely there La Perla underwear really didn’t exacerbate that much. And constipation. Yup. Wonderful symptoms really. It was glorious being pregnant.

At least the glowing skin part of pregnancy might be right around the corner. She smirked. Emily would totally notice and bug her to know what she was using. When she said nothing it would drive her crazy. She liked Emily, she did, but if she didn’t take pleasure in the little things then she would’ve been driven insane ages ago.

Miranda had been spot on target with the maternity clothes selection apparently. The guide she was looking at said seven weeks was about the time to start shopping. Good thing she had some things already squirreled away. That was at least one thing off her list.

She was about to look at some of the weeks ahead when her eyes started to drift closed again. Gosh she was really tired all of a sudden. This really sucked. She looked over at her mostly empty desk, seeing it now as a rather large pillow instead of a work surface. Miranda was out of the office and her work was done for the week. Surely a quick cat nap wouldn’t be the end of the world. Normally these nap attacks didn’t last long, twenty minutes or so before her body managed to restart and she was awake again.

She sighed and turned her chair away from the computer, minimizing the browser window she was on and curling up in her chair. She laid her head down on the desk and was asleep in almost an instant.

And then was woken up what couldn’t have been five minutes later to Emily scoffing loudly, crumbling up a piece of paper, and then throwing it at her. She missed by a long shot but Andy was still up again, glaring at Emily in what she hoped was her best imitation of Miranda. Emily, however, didn’t seem phased.

“So now not only are you gaining weight your napping on the job?” Emily rolled her eyes. “What are you, some sort of fat pregnant cow?”

Heels clicked down the hall and both women looked up as Miranda entered. Miranda pinned Emily with a glare that actually made Emily scooch back in her chair. She tilted her head to the side and threw off her coat and bag straight onto Emily.

“A fat pregnant cow would be doing much more than you are right now, Emily. At least they would be growing another being. You seem to be doing nothing more than sitting there gossiping your day away. Tell Serena while you’re talking to her that I would like to see her latest ideas on my desk before I leave in half an hour. That shouldn’t be hard since you’re already IMing her, now will it?”

She strode into her office, leaving ice in her wake.

Andy had to hold in a snort at Emily’s rather floored face. She just turned to her screen again and refreshed Miranda’s email to find that there was nothing of note this late on a Friday, not really a surprise. With Miranda leaving in half an hour there shouldn’t be too many more tasks that the woman would add before sweeping out of the office for the weekend. She would actually get to go home at a reasonable hour. She smiled. A nap was totally first thing on her agenda as soon as she got home.

“Andrea,” Miranda said, soft as ever.

Andy sighed. Well if the new set of orders was going to be thrown out she’d rather it be now than later. She got up and strode into Miranda’s office, pen and notebook at the ready.

Miranda pinned her with her gaze, sweeping over her appraisingly. “Sit.”

Andy tucked away the pen and notebook, recognizing that the command now meant that they weren’t about to talk about things pertaining to Runway. She sat in the chair right in front of Miranda, crossing her legs, unable to hold in a yawn as she did so. She blinked a couple times before focusing on Miranda again.

“Have you been getting enough rest as Martha instructed?”

“Yeah, solid eight hours normally, no less than six at least.”

Miranda nodded at that. “Good. And last night?”

“Like eight and half I think. Not exactly sure what time I conked out.”

Miranda’s lips pursed just slightly. Andy thought that probably had to do with her word choice more than anything. She tried not to smirk. At least she hadn’t said stuff.

“And so your yawning and drooping eyes today has not been from lack of sleep.”

Andy shook her head. “I think it’s more a symptom of everything else.”

Miranda nodded, picking up her pen again and scribbling down a few notes. “I see. I remember that particular symptom. No one, however, dared to mention to me that I dozed off in the middle of a meeting or in the middle of a conversation. I do believe they were too scared to, as they should have been.” She looked up at Andy, a particular twinkle in her eye.

Miranda Priestly, Queen of the world of Fashion, was joking with her. Andy could believe it, but only because of the last two weeks and everything that had happened. She smiled, full blown and bright.

“Of course, Miranda.”

“You live on the Lower East Side, yes?” Miranda asked, completely changing gears.

Andy nodded. “Yeah on Essex Street, why?”

“Good, that isn’t terribly out of the way of where the twins have a soccer game tonight. I will drop you off on the way.”

“Uh, you don’t have to do that, Miranda. I don’t want you to be late the twins’ game.”

Miranda waved off her concern. “Nonsense, Andrea, we will leave with plenty of time to have you home and to get me to the game. Be ready in twenty minutes, as long as Serena doesn’t disappoint me we will be leaving then.”

“Ok then. Thank you, Miranda.”

“We can’t have you catching something among the crowd on the subway, now can we?” Her eyes flicked down to Andy’s stomach. “Your immune system won’t be what it normally is for the next few months.”

“Just another perk, I guess.”

Miranda’s face brightened just the tiniest bit. “Yes, but I find it all was worth it in the end.” She shook herself. “Now eighteen minutes, Andrea.”

“Yes, Miranda.” Andy stood and walked back to her desk, smiling without knowing it.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Andy sucked in a deep breath and tried not to fidget. Trapped in the small car Miranda would totally notice Andy bouncing her leg up and down or pulling at the ends of her sleeves compulsively and she really didn’t want Miranda to know how nervous she was about this particular appointment. It was the first one after all, and while they wouldn’t really find out more than she had at Dr. Jones’s office, that didn’t matter. She was pregnant and she had decided to keep the baby, but what if something went wrong? She had done more than enough research to know that the first trimester was when most miscarriages happened. She swallowed hard. She didn’t even know what she would do if that happened. She supposed she would cross that bridge when she got there even as she hoped and prayed she never even came close to that juncture.

Roy wound his way through the narrow Manhattan streets as Miranda typed an email on her phone and Andy tried to distract herself by looking out the window. The scenery around her didn’t amaze her like it did when she had first arrived in the city. Now it was just normal. It was home to her, and homes while wonderful rarely ever registered as anything super special. Though New York in comparison to Cincinnati wasn’t even a real competition; New York would always be more special. Though with fewer theme parks.

Her hand drifted down to her stomach absently. She wondered if the baby would like roller coasters as much as she had when she was younger. From the ages of thirteen to eighteen she had owned a season pass to King’s Island and had used it more than a little. It was something to do on a weekend with friends in the summer and she really did love riding The Beast even if she always came home with bruises on her legs and hips. Wooden rollercoasters were rough, sure, but there was just something about them that Andy loved. She wondered idly if the twins liked roller coasters. She wondered if Miranda had ever even taken them near an amusement park. They just seemed so…common in comparison to the woman beside her.

Miranda hit the lock button on her phone and looked up to find Andy staring at her. Andy couldn’t find it in herself to look away. She hadn’t been hurting anything, just observing. Miranda flipped her head to toss that forelock of hair out of her face and cocked an eyebrow.

“What?” Miranda asked, voice smooth and low, but no ice in the tone.

“I was just wondering if uh,” she glanced down at her stomach. “If they’ll like rollercoasters.” Personal questions about the twins might get her on a bit of thin ice, even if she was truly curious.

“Do you like them, Andrea?”

Andy nodded. “I really do. I grew up next to one of the bigger amusement parks in America. I went every single summer for as long as I can remember.”

Miranda’s lips quirked up into just a hint of a smile. “I see. If the twins ever find out that particular detail they’ll want you as a riding buddy.”

Well, that did answer her question. She smiled at that. The girls seemed like the adventure seeking type, especially Cassidy from what little Andy knew of them. “You don’t go with them?” The image of Miranda in her designer pantsuits strapping into the Kingda Ka was almost too funny not to laugh at.

“Heavens no. I detest the things. And Gregory gets motion sick so he, of course, doesn’t ride either. Off and on they’ve had nannies that liked them and they would take them while I observed, but Cara isn’t fond of them now and so they find themselves without someone to watch over them when riding.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I’d hate not being able to ride them, especially as a kid.” Then again she supposed she was until after the baby came. But she wasn’t a kid anymore so it wasn’t exactly the same hardship.

She looked over at her boss and wondered just what it was about rollercoasters that Miranda hated. Most people who didn’t like them had some sort of fear of heights. Andy wasn’t exactly fond of them either, but being in a rollercoaster was different for her. It struck her as odd that Miranda could be afraid of something so mundane. But then again, Miranda was human. If anyone should know that she should.

“Perhaps one summer you could come with us for a weekend.” Miranda looked away from Andy and back at her phone, flicking it on and typing away again. “God knows the twins would be ecstatic. And I find that toddler rides are much more my speed.”

Andy blinked and blinked again for a second. Had Miranda just actually said that not only she could go to the amusement park with her family, the family she guarded more carefully than a dragon guarded its hoard, but had volunteered to take care of her baby while she ran around. That sounded like they had a future together, like Miranda wouldn’t just see her through the pregnancy, but everything that came after. But that couldn’t be, she had to be reading too much into it. Her mind began to spin just a bit.

“But I mean, um, that would be, uh, in like a year and a half at least since the baby is due sometime in July.”

“I said that I would help you along the way, every step of the way of this, Andrea, didn’t I?” Blue eyes looked up from her phone and pinned Andy to her seat in the Mercedes. “I didn’t just mean the pregnancy. Why in the world would I mean that? The pregnancy is the easy part, annoying and rather scary, yes, but easy in comparison to crying babies at three in the morning when you’ve only had maybe an hour of sleep otherwise. In compassion to sitting through every single illness and scrape and wondering if your whole world is going to be ok. In comparison to hoping to god you are raising them to be good people. No, Andrea, pregnancy is the easy part and I intend to be there for more than just the easy part. When have you ever known me to take the easy route?”

Andy couldn’t quite pull in a breath between what Miranda had just said and the force of Miranda’s gaze. Miranda was going to be with her through this. Through everything. But more than anything, as scared as it made her, it was comforting. She really did have at least one person wholly and completely on her side.

And so she nodded slowly. “Ok. I just…” she trailed off not exactly knowing where she was going and not having the brain power to think of anything.

“Good.” Miranda typed out another email in the ensuing silence and Andy breathed out for the first time in what felt like hours.

The car rolled on as her mind sorted through everything that just happened. She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked out the window once more and hissed in a breath as she hit the side of her breast the wrong way. They were sorer than they had been recently, which was the worst timing she could think of, but what was she to do. Right now her body was going to do what it wanted.

She heard Roy turn on the blinker in the front of the care and swallowed. They weren’t anywhere near the next street they had to be turning into the office building. Roy pulled off to the side efficiently parking and stepping out to open the door for Miranda. Andy was frozen in her seat again. The conversation with Miranda had distracted her, but now they were here. She couldn’t move. Did she really want to know if everything was going to go wrong? She was just starting to get used to the idea, just starting to get attached. She didn’t want it ripped away from her now, not when everything else in her life was so volatile.

She was so lost in her own thoughts she didn’t notice Miranda walking around to the other side of the car. The editor opened the door and looked down at Andy with the kindest look Andy had ever seen on Miranda’s face. She held out her hand for Andy to take. Andy swallowed hard and scrunched her hands in her lap.

“Come on, Andrea, everything will be fine. Dr. Patel is the finest there is, I wouldn’t have suggested her if she were otherwise, yes? No matter what, everything will be all right. But in order for that to happen you must actually get out of the car.” Miranda moved her hand a bit further towards Andy. “Besides, Andrea, I haven’t known you to shy away from any challenge presented to you, no matter how you personally felt about it.”

With those words a knot in Andy’s stomach unclenched and her hand slipped into Miranda’s easily. She got out of the car with Miranda’s gentle help and walked into the office building on legs that only felt a little bit like rubber. Miranda kept her hand firmly gripping Andy’s as they walked and for that Andy was more than a little grateful. The contact grounded her in a way she had never experienced before but just attributed it to the powerful presence that Miranda projected.

They rode up in the elevator together. Andy didn’t even hesitate to get in the car and stand beside Miranda. Here wasn’t Runway, she didn’t have to worry about such things. But now that she was thinking about it, lately she hadn’t had to worry about taking a separate elevator even at Runway. Miranda had adjusted her normal routine when it came to Andy.

Andy looked over at Miranda for just a fleeting second, trying to figure out the woman beside her. She knew she wasn’t ever really going to be able to, but the reporter in her wouldn’t stop trying. She always had to know the truth and the whole truth about everything, this was no exception. In fact, for Andy, this might be the story of the century, even if no one would care about it besides her.

The elevator dinged and indicated their floor. Miranda urged Andy gently in front of her, leading them in the right direction with just a gentle tug on Andy’s hand. They walked together, heels clicking on marble floors and echoing off the paneled walls. It looked more like the hallway to a lawyer’s office than a doctor’s office, but then again Andy supposed there were probably other offices on this same floor too.

They came to a door with a golden plaque inlaid beside it that announced in large letters that it was the office for Dr. Patel and her associates. Miranda opened the door and stepped through into a waiting room filled with women of all ages, a great many of which had swollen bellies, and a few nervous men were scattered throughout the myriad of women. The older woman pulled them through the room and to the desk. The receptionist looked up once and then did a double take.

“Oh, Miranda, I wasn’t aware you had an appointment with us today.” She frantically typed into the computer in front of her before Miranda’s words stopped her.

“I do not, however, my assistant, Andrea does.”

Andy stepped forward beside Miranda and gave an awkward little wave. She felt like she was five again and everything was being done for her while she just sat there.

“Andrea Sachs, actually. I have an appointment with Dr. Patel at ten thirty.”

The receptionist glanced up at her, nodded once and typed a few things in with a calmer demeanor, still nervous, but then again most people were in Miranda’s presence. A click of the woman’s mouse and a stack of paperwork printed out on the printer beside the woman. Andy groaned internally. She _hated_ the paperwork you had to do every time you went to a new doctor. As it was she already did plenty of paperwork for Miranda.

The receptionist handed her the packet after placing it on a clipboard with a pen tucked under the clip. Andy took it with a grimacing smile and went to find a couple of open seats where no one else was really around. The waiting room was sort of crowded, so she was lucky to find two seats with one empty on either side, but she supposed it was good enough. Miranda sat without complaint, anyway, and that was as good as a win in her book.

She spent the next fifteen minutes filling out paperwork. The older she got the more time it took, she swore. There always seemed to be something new to add to the list of things the doctor wanted to know. Miranda beside her worked away on her Blackberry like they weren’t sitting in the middle of the waiting room of an OB. It wasn’t really surprising since Miranda could focus with laser like precision anywhere at all once she was in a working mode. Andy kept herself from glancing up every six seconds like some sort of easily distracted child, but the paperwork wasn’t exactly riveting and her nerves were still acting up.

She completed the paperwork and handed it back to the receptionist with a relieved sigh. At least that was done for another doctor. Now just to wait for however long. She looked down at her watch as she walked back over to Miranda and sighed. They had come a bit early to make sure Andy had time to get her paperwork done, but now there was at least fifteen minutes left until her scheduled appointment time and doctors were _always_ running behind. She sat back down and settled in to wait.

She opened up her phone and started to check through her work email. There wasn’t anything super important. Emily seemed to be taking care of almost everything since she was back at the office. Without email or a list of commands fired off by Miranda there wasn’t exactly much she could do in the middle of a doctor’s office. She clicked on one of the games on her phone instead and set to playing Candy Crush until she ran out of lives.

She’d made a tour through almost all the games on her phone before her name was called to enter back into the actual doctor’s office. She stood along with Miranda and made her way to the smiling nurse dressed in scrubs covered in Sesame Street characters. Andy thought they were cute but she could almost sense Miranda’s disapproval hanging about her like a miasma. She thought they were perfectly appropriate for a doctor’s office, but then Andy saw that the woman was wearing Crocs and it all became clear just why Miranda was on the verge of another cerulean lecture. She shot Miranda a look that said please no and Miranda cocked one eyebrow at Andy before visibly settling. Andy sighed and walked into the little anteroom that the nurse had indicated she should go into.

The nurse stepped in and took her weight and height. “One thirty-five and five eight. You’re right in the middle of the curve for your height.” The nurse smiled and Andy tried not to wince and glance at Miranda. She doubted Miranda weighed any more than one twenty and that was pushing it. She probably weighed more around one fifteen. As the queen on high of the fashion world Andy supposed it had to be that way, but still. She felt a bit of a blush coloring her cheeks.

Miranda for her part, said absolutely nothing and from what Andy could see out of the corner of her eye didn’t even pull a face. Andy wondered if it was because she was pregnant that she was getting a pass. She supposed she’d take what she could get.

The nurse led them back into a room where she took Andy’s blood pressure and asked her a stream of seemingly endless questions that she filled in on the laptop she was carrying around with her before she disappeared with a smile and the cursory the doctor will be here soon.

Andy looked down at the gown that was left on the exam table. Ugh, yet another thing she hated, hospital gowns. She stepped forward and picked it up, sighing. At least this gown wasn’t the cheap paper that most places were using now. It was actually cloth, and nice cloth at that. There were definite perks to going to an upper end doctor.

She took off her shirt and started to slip off her pants when Miranda was suddenly in her personal space. Andy looked up with wide eyes. She straightened and looked at Miranda carefully.

“Miranda?”

Miranda reached out and traced the edge of Andy’s bra where just a bit of skin was slipping out past the cup. “You’ll need new bras soon it seems. I forgot about that when acquiring maternity clothing for you. However, for now I believe that what’s in the Closet should suffice. Later we shall have to see about nursing bras, but that will be months from now.”

“Uh, yeah, um, I’ve been meaning to that, but there hasn’t been a ton of time to go into the Closet and dig around for the right size. Well, once I find the right size again.” Bras were so very finicky with sizes and with as tender as she was she knew she was going to be even pickier than normal. It would probably take a couple hours, maybe less if she could rope Nigel into it.

“Take a few hours when we return, after, of course you relieve Emily for a few minutes so she can use the bathroom.” Miranda rolled her eyes. “I don’t see why she has that ridiculous compulsion to man the phones to her own detriment, but whatever she wishes I suppose.”

Andy wasn’t about to tell Miranda the story about her firing a girl for missing a call that Emily had told her months ago. Either it was true, which did sound like Miranda, or it was one of those gross office over exaggerations in which case she didn’t want to be on the other end of Miranda’s ire at the story. Not that she really had room to be mad over a story like that considering how she was normally at the office, but still.

Miranda stepped back and walked back to the seat in the corner of the room. “Nigel shouldn’t be terribly busy today and he knows the Closet better than you do. Enlist him to expedite the process if you must.” She waved away the concern and glanced back down at her phone again, but Andy could see just the beginnings of a smile on the woman’s face.

She took a deep breath and dispelled the feeling that she wasn’t quite in Kansas anymore before she slipped into the gown, thanking every deity known to man that she was more than capable of slipping off her bra under a shirt. Miranda didn’t need to see anymore of her than she had last week when she had tried on all those clothes. Her face heated up a bit more at the memory and a sudden though invaded her mind about what it would be like to be mostly naked in front of Miranda in an entirely different context.

She shook off the thought. Pregnancy hormones must be getting the best of her already.

When she was done changing she sat on the edge of the exam table and took a deep breath. She really hoped she didn’t have to wait long for the doctor. Pacing was out in a gown that was about two seconds from splitting open at the back. It was better than most since it tied in several different places, but still, it was a hospital gown. So there wasn’t really much she could do to work off her nervous energy. And Miranda would totally notice if she started to fidget again. She ran her hand through her hair and damned how it would look later. There would always be a mirror she could fix it in.

“I was nervous at my first appointment as well,” Miranda said from her corner of the room.

Andy turned to look at Miranda who was watching her once more.

“Of course no one knew, if anything most people thought I was angry that day, not nervous. I believe Nigel remembers that day in its infamy. I literally threw out half an issue and told the art department to redo it within twenty-four hours.” Miranda smirked at that before shaking her head and continuing. “I wanted Gregory to come with me of course, but he made so many excuses it just wasn’t worth it. For a man who wanted children he wanted nothing to do with the actual process itself except for the very beginning and then again after they were out of diapers.” A dark look crossed her face.

Andy didn’t blame her that sounded horrid. She wondered if that had anything to do why the split up so soon after the twins were born. Probably, she’d definitely be more than a little bitter after a stunt like that. Whoever she was with would have to be there with her the whole way, no exceptions.

“So I went alone already more than a little…upset and worried because of my own perceived inadequacies regarding my ability to love a child, and then the fact that there could potentially be something wrong…” she sighed. “If I wasn’t the Dragon Lady before that day I definitely was after. Childbirth is a complicated enough process when the woman is young. Add that I was thirty-six when I had the twins and there were more problems to be considered. I’d researched everything thoroughly, of course, when do I not?” She snorted humorlessly. “I believe I psyched myself out just a bit. Dr. Patel put as many fears as she could to rest, but I wasn’t quite right until the first round of tests were back and I could breathe again. The rest of the time I was fine, but the first appointment is the worst, Andrea, believe me.”

Andy wasn’t quite sure she knew what to say. She was getting all these glimpses of Miranda the person not the icon and she didn’t know what to do with them just yet. She didn’t have quite enough to construct an image of who Miranda was outside of Runway’s hallowed walls, but the little things she had seen were skewing the picture of the goddess who ruled on high. And yet each little glimpse filled her with warmth that Miranda would trust her with all these little details because Andy understood the last thing Miranda did was share personal things.

“Thank you for being here with me, Miranda,” was what she finally settled on to say. “I don’t know what I’d do without you here. I’d probably be climbing the walls.”

The corners of Miranda’s mouth quirked up and her eyes sparkled just the tiniest bit. “Yes, well, goodness knows we have to prevent that. From the way you walk in heels I don’t think you would be coordinated enough not to hurt yourself in the attempt.”

Andy rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything. Her lips crept up into an amused smile without her permission. Miranda was joking with her, she couldn’t begrudge that even if it was with her normal sarcastic bite.

Another few minutes passed and then there was a knock on the door before the doctor stepped in. The woman was average height with greying black hair pulled back into a low ponytail and a serene air about her. She smiled at Andy pleasantly and walked further into the room, letting the door shut behind her. She stopped mid-step when she saw Miranda but recovered admirably. If Andy had to guess from the expression that crossed her face she was thanking her lucky stars she’d worn what looked like a Donna Karen dress under her white coat and Ferragamo flats today.

“Miss Sachs, I’m Dr. Patel.” The doctor spoke with a slight accent. If Andy had to guess it was something like Indian and British mixed. “So it seems you’re about eight weeks along according to the information you gave the nurse and the records that Dr. Jones sent over. Dr. Jones ran a great many of the preliminary tests, but since she was running the tests as a diagnostic tool there were a few she missed. Today we’ll take some more blood to run those missed tests, you’ll have a full exam, and then a PAP smear and afterwards I can answer any questions you might have, if that sounds amenable to you.”

Andy gulped at the thought of more bloodwork. She had thought it was going to happen, but thinking and doing were two totally different things. She opened her mouth to tell Dr. Patel that would be fine as long as the blood tests were last, but Miranda beat her to the punch.

“Andrea has a slight fear of needles and I would appreciate it greatly if whoever is best at such things would take her blood.”

Dr. Patel glanced over at Miranda for a second before looking back at Andy with a clear question on her face.

Andy just nodded. “Uh, yeah, that would be good. Also if we left that until the very end before I go that would be best too just in case. I’ve fainted a couple times before. It’s not a normal thing, but since I’m nervous today probably best not to take chances.” She rubbed at the back of her neck and looked at the floor.

“Ah, I understand, we will leave that until last then.” She flipped open Andy’s file and made a note before looking up again. “Your test results from Dr. Jones’s office were all very good. Nothing on them showed anything concerning. The rest that were are running are precautionary measures of course, but as young and healthy as your records make you out to be all should be fine.” She smiled at Andy again.

Andy breathed just a bit easier at that news. She thought she heard a sigh from the corner of the room as well, but she didn’t get to turn to see Miranda because Dr. Patel was walking towards her.

“Shall we start the exam now?”

Andy nodded and the doctor set to poking, prodding, and generally getting very, very acquainted with every inch of Andy. She sat through all of it patiently. She wanted to know that she was ok to have the baby. She wanted to know the baby would be ok. And that required her putting up with some mild annoyance. It wasn’t like she didn’t work for Runway, and that was more than a mild annoyance. She immediately felt bad for thinking that, but then again it wasn’t like Miranda didn’t know she was a difficult boss so she shrugged it off.

She just hoped that Miranda wasn’t seeing anymore of her than Andy wanted her to, but then again considering how the exam was that might be stretch. She felt her face heating up slightly after the first few minutes and it had stayed that way until Dr. Patel had finished up the PAP smear and had sat back. Once Andy was settled back into a comfortable position she managed to reign it back in and settle down.

“So, any questions about the next few months, or anything at all really. I understand that there’s a lot to think about and consider. Through the next few appointments we’ll be going over the things you’ll need to consider, birth plans and classes and the like, so there’s no need to find out everything at once. You’re also free to call my office with questions as well if you can’t think of anything right now.”

Andy thought for a minute. A great lot of her questions had been answered by the research she’d done online or by the pamphlets that Dr. Jones had given her. But there were still a couple things she could ask now.

“Normally I run in the mornings, can I still do that or do I need to switch to a less strenuous form of exercise?”

“You should be able to keep exercising as you have. You shouldn’t have any real problems during your first trimester, but during your second a few exams should be performed in order to make sure everything is still fine. As long as you don’t overheat and listen to your body you should be just fine. If you would want to change exercise routines I’d recommend something like yoga instead, but for now continue as you are.”

Andy nodded. “Ok. I’ve been reading online that people can still spot while they’re pregnant, but then it’s not a good sign if it’s too much blood. So what exactly is too much and what do I do if there is too much?”

“If you’re worried you’ll bleed through your clothing, that’s too much. If it’s just a few drops it should be fine. You should still call the office just in case, but unless it’s more than a few drops I’ll probably just tell you to rest, but the more information I have the better I can do my job later in the pregnancy. Especially call if there is pain and cramping along with bleeding because those are not good signs.”

“Alright.” Andy thought more, but couldn’t think of any other questions she had at the moment. “I think that’s all I have for now.” She’d be doing more research and coming back with more for sure.

Dr. Patel stood at that. “Good, good, of course feel free to call if you have any other questions. If not I’ll see you in about a month for your next appointment. The girls at the reception desk will be happy to make it for you. I’ll see Marissa in to draw your blood and then you’ll be free to go.” She nodded at Miranda. “It was lovely as always to see you Miranda.”

Miranda nodded in her normal imperious manner and the doctor slipped from the room. The editor turned to Andy, eyes softer than they had been a second before.

“Less nervous now?”

Andy laughed. “Yeah, a little, I’ll be better when the blood tests come back, but since she didn’t find anything worrying during the exam, yeah I’m better.”

Miranda hummed. “I didn’t know you ran, Andrea. I didn’t know you even had time.”

Andy shrugged. “You make time I guess. I run before I shower for work since I have to shower anyway in order to make this manageable to style.” She tugged on the end of her hair. “You manage to find time to exercise too.” Andy knew that well, she had to block time off of Miranda’s schedule just to make sure the woman did.

“Yes, well.” Miranda shrugged. She supposed having assistants setting aside time in a busy schedule meant that exercise might be a little more attainable in the grand scheme of things.

Another knock sounded on the door and the nurse in the Sesame Street scrubs came in. She took Andy’s blood quickly and efficiently, but this time Andy wasn’t exactly fine afterwards. She felt more than a little woozy. Damn nerves. She laid back on the table after the nurse slipped out the door with the tubes of blood.

Miranda was over her in a second. “Andrea, are you all right?”

Andy closed her eyes to make the room stop spinning. “Yeah, I’ll be ok. I just need a minute.” She waved the other woman off.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t get someone.” She sounded rather worried.

“It’s fine, really. I’m not going to pass out.” She knew what that felt like and it wasn’t the dizziness she felt now. Nothing was going black around the edges. As long as she didn’t try to push herself she would stay conscious.

Miranda sighed audibly. “Fine, fine, I’ll go make use of myself then and schedule your next appointment while you’re resting.”

Andy nodded just a bit, trying not to move her head too much. She knew that Miranda would take care of whatever money the appointment had cost while she was out there too just so Andy couldn’t say anything about it again, but she was a little too busy to call the woman on it. She listened as Miranda exited the room and sighed as the door shut behind her.

She laid for a few minutes as the dizziness faded and then finally stood slowly. Gingerly she got dressed, leaving off her heels for now. She didn’t trust her balance in the things normally, and really didn’t after that dizzy spell she just had. The bottoms of her feet would just have to deal with a little dirt. She managed to get everything in place just in time for Miranda to open the door.

“Ah, Andrea, feeling better.”

Andy nodded and walked towards the door. Miranda glanced down at the Manolos that Andy had in her hands but said nothing. If she told anyone that had happened she’d be deemed as crazy, but then again that was probably the least crazy thing that had happened all day.

“Good, good, apparently the fools at Runway need the fear of god scared into them already today. Come along.”

Andy grimaced at that and texted Emily discreetly that they were on their way and that Miranda would be on the warpath. After all, anything that Emily could do in the next twenty minutes before they got to work meant a happier Miranda and she wanted that and it would definitely be better for anyone involved.

Emily texted back an ‘oh my god’ in all capitals and Andy laughed and threw her phone in her purse, feeling lighter than she had all day as the elevator descended and Miranda stood beside her checking her Blackberry once again.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Andy was having a rather horrible day. She thought that morning sickness was supposed to get better as the days went on, but this morning it had been all she could do just to get herself to Runway on time. She knew she looked like a mess, but she couldn’t bring her to care when she was dizzy enough that there was no way she would trust herself on heels and she was throwing up at the barest suggestion of food. Emily was going to have an absolute field day ripping her apart. Andy didn’t think she would feel bad when she inevitably snapped and ripped the other woman to shreds. She had the patience of a saint until she felt ill and then civilizations would fall under her ire.

She practically crawled to her desk, sighing with relief that Emily either wasn’t there yet or was off somewhere else in the maze that was Runway doing god only knew what. Andy didn’t care so long as it meant there wasn’t a fly buzzing around her head in a rather annoying accent. Andy wondered idly if this mood was also because of hormones, but then found she didn’t quite care enough to deduce if it was. If it was, it didn’t exactly matter, now did it?

She settled in to work and prayed that nothing exciting would happen that day so she could just get through the next eight hours and then go home and pass out in nice comfortable sweats that didn’t make her feel like some sort of bloating whale and then sleep until her alarm clock woke her the next morning. God, it sounded like such a lovely plan. If only there weren’t eight hours of emails, phone calls, and other ridiculous requests to get through before then.

Andy wondered when Miranda would get there, both wanting the other woman there and dreading her presence at the same time. Miranda in the office usually meant it was anything but quiet and easy, but Miranda made her feel better nine times out of ten anymore. She smiled as she thought back to the first OB appointment last week. Miranda had been lovely then, so concerned after Andy was so shaky after getting her blood drawn. Then again, that wasn’t really different than any of the other times Miranda had been lovely since she’d gotten pregnant. Her boss really was a wonderful person, even if no one else could see it.

She was so lost in thoughts about Miranda, she almost completely missed Miranda sweeping into her office. She threw her coat and bag on Emily’s desk and shot what passed as a smile for Miranda inside the office at Andrea before going into her office proper. Andy shot up and walked on unsteady feet to stand in front of Miranda’s desk, notepad in hand, hoping she didn’t fall over anytime soon.

Miranda was silent for a long moment, looking Andy over carefully. “Andrea, are you feeling alright?” she asked in a quiet voice.

Andy couldn’t hold back the snort, but she did manage to clamp down on the derisive laugh that wanted to come out. “Uh, no, not really.” She ran her hand through her hair and then immediately regretted the sudden movement. She reached out for the chair in front of her to steady herself as the world spun a little more than normal.

“The dizziness set in I take it?” Miranda stepped forward and wrapped her arm around Andy’s waist.

Andy let herself be led over to the couch and Miranda set her down gently. She nodded, barely moving her head even though she was relatively safe now sitting down.

“Did you eat today?”

Andrea felt herself turning green at the prospect.

“Ah, one of those days then.” Miranda opened the top drawer of her desk and drew out a pack of Ritz crackers. She handed them to Andy and looked at her expectantly. “Eat a few of those, some of the dizziness is probably from lack of food, the rest, I’m afraid is just a consequence of pregnancy.”

Andy nodded. She’d read about that particular side effect and thought nothing of it. She’d been dizzy before and while it was unpleasant it wasn’t world ending. She was now rethinking that position. Dizziness was of the devil, she was sure.

She crinkled the package and pulled it open, munching on a cracker after a second. Her stomach turned dangerously without even having food in it yet. She groaned, finished the cracker, but didn’t move to take another one. Miranda watched her intently for a moment before getting up and circling the desk. She stood behind Andy the next second with her hands lightly resting on Andy’s shoulders. Andy leaned back into the touch before she even thought about it.

“Close your eyes. It might make the dizziness worse for a few seconds but it should even out again.”

Andy did as she was told, the world spinning and spinning for a few seconds so hard she was afraid she might fall out of her chair. Then finally, as Miranda had said, it stopped again. Miranda’s fingers found her temples and massaged gently. Andy sighed at the touch. She never understood why head and stomach were connected as they were, but every time she was nauseous she got a headache and vice versa. The massage toned both the headache and stomach ache down enough to where she wasn’t afraid she was going to throw up the one cracker she had eaten, but that was about it.

After a few minutes Miranda’s hands fell to her shoulders and neck and kneaded out the tight muscles there. Andy relaxed more and more, still feeling like shit, but at least she felt a little bit better now. Miranda’s hands were almost magic. She fought the urge to lean her head back against the other woman’s stomach and just try to fall asleep.

Miranda patted her shoulder and stepped back far too soon for Andy’s liking. “Feel better?”

Andy blinked her eyes open slowly and turned to face Miranda. Her stomach had settled enough she wasn’t about to keel over like earlier. The dizziness was still there, but maybe if she could down a few more crackers that would help.

“Yeah, a lot, thanks.” She smiled at Miranda weakly.

“Are you sure that you can make it through today?”

Andy nodded. “I think so.”

Miranda looked her up and down slowly. “Fine, but if you get any worse I am sending you home whether you want it or not. Martha said you needed rest and I intend to hold up my end of the bargain to give you time to rest.”

Andy looked at the other woman and cocked an eyebrow. “As if you didn’t work through the bad days when you were pregnant.”

Miranda waved her off. “Yes, I did, but I was an idiot and you are not allowed to follow that example.”

“Do as I say, not as I do?” Andy had to hold back a laugh.

Miranda’s face scrunched a little before smoothing out again. “I always did hate that saying when I was young. Still, I suppose it does fit here. Small consolation in that if I did it all over again I wouldn’t work myself quite that hard.”

Andy titled her head. “Fair enough, I guess.” She eased up out of the chair and didn’t immediately fall over, which she considered a win. She brought up her notepad again, pen at the ready. “Is there anything you need this morning, Miranda?” Falling back into work mode would maybe get her mind off the rest of the sick feeling in her stomach.

Miranda hesitated a second before launching into a list a mile long for Andy and Emily to complete. If Emily ever returned that was. Andy nodded as she finished writing everything and returned to her desk after she shot Miranda a more genuine smile. It was still a rather horrible day, but at least Miranda had made it a bit better.

 

 

Andy sat down the phone on her desk and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Tears prickled at the sides of her eyes but she managed to blink them back. Everything had come back fine in her blood work. Nothing indicated that there was anything wrong, or even that the pregnancy might be difficult. By all accounts she was lucky. She had to reign in the urge to call Miranda who was out at a lunch meeting and then would pick the girls up to spend a few hours with them before she dropped them at the train station for their weekend at their father’s. She knew the other woman was busy, but she wanted desperately to share the news with someone.

She bit the inside of her lip, looking up at Emily who was typing away. Andy immediately discarded any notions of telling the hyper tense woman just yet, especially when she wanted someone to be relieved with her, not someone to play Spanish inquisition. She briefly thought of Nigel. He could be a choice, but no. Not yet. Her hand slipped to her stomach. All the books said to wait to tell people until after the first trimester was over when the risk of miscarriage was significantly reduced. At nine weeks she was close enough to that to might as well wait until it was truly a sure thing.

So if she really did want to tell someone, she was going to have to tell Miranda, but she really didn’t want to wait. She looked down at her phone. Miranda almost always had her phone on vibrate in meetings that she didn’t want to be disturbed in. And a text message wasn’t really that much of a disturbance in the scheme of things. But she didn’t want to push her luck with Miranda. She was being so nice, Andy didn’t want to ruin that.

But the urge to share was too overwhelming. She grabbed out her phone, typed out a quick message to Miranda, sent it before she could do anything different, and set the phone very far away from her so she could pretend she just hadn’t done something that could be a monumental mistake. Every minute the phone was silent weighed on her conscious. Really, she just needed to put the phone in her desk and forget about it for a while, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that either. Instead she just answered email after email and chipped away at the list of tasks Miranda had left for her and Emily before she had swept from the office. It helped a bit, but not enough.

Andy practically jumped on the phone when it vibrated to almost groan out loud when she saw that the text message she had gotten was from her mother checking in for the day and asking how she was. She put her phone down and turned away from it again. She would answer her mother later, after Miranda had answered so she wouldn’t keep getting her hopes up when her phone vibrated only to have it be her mother again.

As the minutes wore by she consoled herself with the fact that no one had murdered her yet and no one from the future had come back to stop her, so whatever reaction Miranda had or would have to her text wasn’t world ending. That thought really didn’t make her feel that much better, but if nothing else it amused her some and passed the time. She really shouldn’t have done that. Why in the world did she think it was ok to push the boundaries of her relationship with Miranda?

Her phone vibrated again just as the hour and a half allotted to Miranda’s lunch meeting expired. Andy swallowed, trying not to get her hopes up but it was no real use. Her heart was beating hard anyway as she turned over her phone and stared at the still lit screen to see a little text icon with the name Miranda beside it. Andy quickly stabbed at the buttons to open the message, still holding her breath.

_That’s wonderful, Andrea. I’m very glad all the news was positive. I believe this is where a lesser being would say I told you so, but I will refrain._

Andy read the message again. And then once more to make sure. Miranda Priestly was joking with her. Really. It was happening. Andy didn’t quite know what to make of it, but there was a large smile on her face anyway. She traced the screen on her phone for a few seconds before picking it up. She hesitated a few seconds more before typing out a reply.

**I’m not exactly sure saying you’ll refrain is actually refraining.**

A reply came within the next minute. Miranda had to be in the car then, on her way to pick up the girls, then.

_Andrea, in what world does that sentence actually make sense._

**You knew exactly what I meant.**

_If I did, how would you ever know?_

Andy actually chuckled out loud. She could hear the exact tone of voice Miranda would have responded in, that dry, almost deadpan inflection that sometimes caused shivers to run up and down Andy’s spine.

**Remember, I’m the mind reading assistant.**

Andy bit her lip, seeing the natural break in the conversation. She should end it there. She didn’t want to take up any of Miranda’s time with the girls with her silly texting. She swallowed, sadness pulling at her already. The few texts had already brightened her day even more than finding out everything was alright with her and the baby. She frowned, pushing aside that thought and what it might mean for later.

**Have a good time with the girls, Miranda.**

_Thank you, Andrea. Have a nice rest of your day as well._

Andy put down her phone with a sigh and returned to answering emails, already looking forward to the next day when she would see Miranda again.

 

Andy started to elbow her way through the crowd with increasing impatience. This morning had not been a bad morning sickness-wise, but Jesus above the rush hour crush was worse than usual today and climbing out of the subway station nearest to Runway she was already done with everything and she’d only been out of her apartment for forty-five minutes. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do this when she got bigger. It was hard enough being a size six slender woman who could squeeze into small space.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she finally saw the grey sky over New York. She shivered. It felt like it was going to snow soon and that was just the icing on the top of her already perfect cake. The commute back would be even worse if the clouds had anything to say about it. She groaned internally. There was something to be said about living in a city where you drove everywhere instead of walked. That was the only thing better about Cincinnati, she thought, freer access to cars.

She looked down at her cell phone clock and cursed. Miranda would be in the office soon and she was still two blocks away. She started to pick up the pace, hoping against hope that Miranda would be running late today too. Not that she ever did, but Andy did also live on hope sometimes.

Andy ducked and dodged people, ignoring the disgruntled comments as she passed. They didn’t have Miranda Priestly as a boss. She really didn’t want to have the patented Priestly glare directed at her at all today when it was already turning out to be a rather crappy day. She just wanted Christmas to be over so the increased traffic might die down a bit. Two more weeks and maybe, just maybe it would be a little less crazy, though she wasn’t really holding her breath.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she finally came into view of the Elias-Clarke building. She didn’t see a silver Mercedes in front of the building either. Her heart leapt for joy. Thank god everything seemed to be working out for her even with rush hour being horrible.

Her foot snagged on something. Andy’s eyes widened as her arms started to pinwheel to catch her balance, but it didn’t help. She was falling and there was nothing that she could do about it. One arm shot out to catch her while the other arm came around her middle instinctively to protect the little growing life inside. A startled squeak left her mouth without her consent as the sidewalk rushed to her face. She prayed she didn’t hit hard.

The impact jolted up the arm she’d put out to catch herself. She hissed in a breath as her knees met pavement. They were scraped up for sure. When she was steady again she lifted herself up to see a businessman standing above her.

“That’s what you get for not watching where you were going,” he sneered before disappearing into the crowd.

Andy saw red. She had tripped over him. And he had stood there and waited for her to fall and then look up again just so he could be an asshole. He had endangered her child. And he was not sorry about it. She started to climb to her feet but stopped as a zing of pain shot through her knees. She huffed out a breath as she stood gingerly. The guy would get away, but if she ever saw him again she was totally going to slap him with no explanation and just walk away. For a millisecond she wondered if she could just have Miranda destroy his career instead. As much as she liked that idea, she wouldn’t ask that of Miranda. Not for a scraped palm and a couple of scraped knees.

She looked down at her knees now that she was standing. They were disgusting, covered in blood and dust and god knew what else from the streets of New York. She grimaced. She would have to clean herself up first thing when she got into work in order to avoid infection, but they didn’t look bad enough to have to go to the ER. She started to walk slowly forward, knees protesting the movement and the heels she had on after their rather rough collision with the ground. She was ever so thankful that Miranda didn’t have her running the errands anymore. It would have been a super horrible day otherwise.

She made it in front of Elias-Clarke just as Miranda pulled up. Andy sighed heavily. And she would have made it too if it weren’t for a stupid businessman with big feet and an even bigger ego. Miranda got out of the car and strode towards Andy, fire in her eyes. Andy almost flinched back but managed to stop herself.

“Who did this?” Miranda gestured at Andy’s rather ruined tights and the blood that was still slowly seeping down her legs.

Andy swallowed. “I tripped over some idiot’s foot on the way here.”

Miranda practically growled. “Did you land on your stomach at all?”

“No, just my knees and this hand. I’m fine otherwise.”

Miranda looked her up and down. “We’re going to clean your wounds and then we are going to go to Dr. Patel’s office to have you checked out and make sure everything is still ok.”

“Miranda, I think I’ll be fine. My knees are sore, but other than that everything feels normal, I swear. I don’t think I need to go that far.”

She saw the flash of the ice queen cross Miranda’s eyes and braced for impact, but it never came. Miranda stood down, huffing out a breath.

“I will defer to your judgement for now, but the second you feel anything other than completely and utterly fine we will be doing things my way.”

Andy nodded. Seemed like a fair enough trade really. If she didn’t feel anything other than fine she would want to at least call the doctor. She titled her head.

“I can call the help line that Dr. Patel gave me and ask if I should come in just to be sure.”

Miranda stood a little straighter at that suggestion. “That is a much better compromise, one with the common sense that I thought you had lost in your fall.”

Andy almost snorted at Miranda’s rather tame barb.

“You will call while I bandage you up. Come.”

Miranda grabbed Andy’s arm and tugged her through the front doors of Elias-Clarke. Andy managed to keep up with Miranda’s fast pace even on aching knees, which was rather a miracle, but then again Miranda seemed to be taking more of her weight that she even realized. They rode up to Runway on the elevator in silence, Miranda still gripping Andy. The both of them breezed past Emily and into Miranda’s private bathroom without stopping. Emily gaped after them and Andy just looked back over her shoulder and shrugged.

Once in the bathroom Miranda sat Andy down on the toilet and set to digging through the cabinets in the small space. Andy took the time to unearth her cell phone from her purse and searched her contacts for the help line she’d put in just as soon as she’d gotten the number. Miranda pulled out the first aid kit just as she hit dial and brought the phone up to her ear.

Three rings later Miranda was squatting down in front of Andy, looking at her bloodied knees with a rather large frown. She gestured for Andy to stand and peel off what was left of her tights. Andy almost blushed, but then realized that Miranda had already seen her in her underwear weeks ago and what was their really to hide.

She stood just as someone answered the phone. “This is the help line of the practice of Dr. Patel, Richardson, and Freeman how may I help you today?” A friendly male voice asked.

“Hi, um, this is Andy Sachs. I was just on my way to work and I tripped and fell. I landed on my hands and knees and I feel completely fine, but I was just wondering if I should come in for a checkup just to be sure the baby is alright?”

“How far along are you Ms. Sachs?”

“Nine weeks.”

There was the sound of typing in the background for a few second before the answer came. “I believe with how early on you are in your pregnancy everything should be just fine. Keep monitoring yourself and if anything changes and you feel in anyway like something is wrong then call to set up an emergency appointment.”

Andy nodded. “Ok, that’s what I thought, but better safe than sorry.”

“Of course. Any other questions?”

“Nope, that was it, thanks.”

Andy said a quick goodbye before hanging up and looking at Miranda who had frozen, still kneeling on the ground in front of Andy, to listen closely to call. Miranda sprang into action as Andy sat down again, sans tights.

“He said I should be fine and to monitor myself. If I don’t feel right at any point then I call and set up an appointment.”

Miranda nodded as she poured alcohol onto a cotton ball and started to clean Andy’s knee with gentle, efficient movements. “Acceptable, then.”

Andy wasn’t certain but she swore she saw Miranda’s shoulder relax just a tiny bit at the news. Maybe she was just imagining it. She was probably just imagining it. Why would Miranda be so invested that she literally tensed up that much? Then again that was the question she’d been trying to answer for the last three weeks, wasn’t it?

She hissed in a breath as the alcohol seeped into her wounds, stinging rather viciously no matter how careful Miranda was being. Miranda just looked up at her with a cocked eyebrow, expression conveying “are you really that wimpy” rather effectively. Andy just shrugged and blushed a little bit. She always hated having her cuts cleaned when she was little and not much had changed. She wondered if her baby was going to be the same way. Her hand dropped to her stomach.

“Something wrong?” Miranda asked immediately, not missing a movement.

“No, uh, I was just thinking actually, about the baby.”

Miranda sat back again and pulled out some gauze and bandages, placing the white pad on Andy’s knee and taping up the one she’d cleaned with the efficiency that only a mother had. “About what?”

“I always hated having to get my cuts cleaned. Obviously, I still do, but I was wondering if the baby was going to be the same way.”

Miranda’s blue eyes met Andy’s. “The child could do worse than being exactly like you, Andrea.”

Andy smiled. It was as close as Miranda ever really got to a compliment. “A little better pain tolerance might be good, but thank you.”

Miranda nodded and went to cleaning Andy’s other knee with the same gentleness that she had the first.

“Did you learn how to bandage up wounds like this from having the twins?” Andy asked, relaxing her knee and hoping that might help with some of the pain.

“I took a first aid class before I had them, actually. I figured that it would be best to be prepared, but there is nothing better than actual practice. So in a way, I suppose than answer to your question is yes, I did.” She threw aside another bloody cotton ball and reached for more bandages. “They rather hated the sting of alcohol as well, but I learned the trick soon enough for that. I told them stories while I patched them up and it distracted them enough that they didn’t cry or wiggle out of my grasp.” A smile ghosted across her face. “I believe they now remember those stories with some fondness.”

Andy warmed a little bit, imagining Miranda kneeling in front of tiny little red heads telling them silly stories to make them feel better. She didn’t know how anyone got the impression that Miranda was anything other than a wonderful mother to her children.

Miranda reached for Andy’s hand now, starting to clean the scrapes there. “I still tell them stories whenever they are sick. It’s become sort of a tradition.”

“What are the stories about?”

“This and that, silly little things, whatever I can come up with in the moment. I believe the last one had a knight Andrea and a princess Emily.” Miranda looked up at Andy with a smile in her eyes. “One the twins asked for a great deal when they were little had to do with faeries and a kangaroo.”

“Kangaroo?” Andy laughed.

“We had just been to the zoo and I was thinking on my feet.”

“I’d like to hear that story,” Andy said just as Miranda finished bandaging her hand.

“Ah, but that will have to wait for the next time you are under the weather, Andrea.” Miranda stood up and offered her hand to Andy. “It would break tradition now that you’re all fixed up.”

Andy took the hand offered and stood up gingerly. She winced having all her weight back on her knees. She kicked off her heels and sighed in relief. That was a lot better.

“Sorry,” she said to Miranda, bending to grab her heels off the floor. “My knees are sore and the heels were a bit too much.”

Miranda nodded. “See Nigel for some flats then. We can’t have you walking around barefoot like some sort of heathen now can we?”

Andy snorted. “Of course not.” She started to walk from the bathroom before turning back to Miranda. “Thank you for bandaging up my wounds. You really didn’t have to do that.”

Miranda shrugged and turned away from Andy, starting to clean up the remains of the first aid session. “I think you might find that I did, Andrea, but of course you are welcome.”

Andy’s heart beat a little faster. She had just gotten an acknowledgement of her thanks from Miranda Priestly. That never happened. It was even rarer than a thank you. She felt a little dazed as she walked back out to her desk and threw her shoes by her chair before she gestured to Emily that she was stepping out for a minute. She felt a little like she’d fallen down the rabbit hole, but she wasn’t certain she would want it any other way.

 

Miranda walked out of her office a little past seven. She glanced at Emily who already had the phone up to her ear to call Roy and then looked over at Andrea. Andy sat up straight, knees still aching and hand more than a little sore. The continued typing throughout the day had aggravated it more than it already had been. Andy had been swallowing Tylenol every few hours to try and help, but it had only done so much.

“Andrea,” Miranda said in her normal whisper soft tone.

“Yes, Miranda?”

“Come along.”

Andy shot up and grabbed Miranda’s coat and bag, grabbing her stuff from her desk quickly. She looked it over once before deciding she had everything important for the weekend. She was at Miranda’s side once again within a minute. Miranda nodded at her promptness before setting off at a slower pace than normal. It took Andy a second to register that fact, but then it hit her. Miranda was walking slower for her sake, which her knees were definitely glad for.

They boarded the elevator together and swept into the Elias-Clarke lobby, almost the same as they had swept into the building earlier in the day. Once they were ensconced in the back of the Mercedes Miranda turned to Andy and spoke.

“The thought of you commuting as you are now during the upcoming inclement weather is unacceptable in your condition. Not only is there risk of something like this happening again,” she gestured to Andy’s bandaged limbs. “As cold and flu season really sets in you’ll be at more of a risk for infection, which of course cannot be allowed to happen.”

Andy tried to speak up, but Miranda plowed on.

“Starting on Monday Roy will pick you up at eight a.m. sharp every morning and then you will ride home with me. You will be saved from any more accidents like today and from a good deal of the plague carriers that make up the city during the winter.”

“Miranda, I couldn’t ask you to do that. I couldn’t ask Roy to do that. My apartment is so out of the way to everything.”

“You don’t have to ask, I am telling you that this is how it will be.”

Andy’s hackles rose at that. She didn’t want to be told anything, especially when it pertained to her own mobility around the city.

“Look, I appreciate the thought, but I am a grown woman. Today was an accident. It probably won’t happen again and as for the cold and flu I take good care of myself. I will be fine taking the subway as I have been for the last year in your employ.”

Miranda’s eyes narrowed. “Andrea, you are not being reasonable.”

“I’m being perfectly reasonable. Rides to and from work would be nice, Miranda, but I don’t need them. You can’t encase me in bubble wrap for the whole of this pregnancy. What would be next? Working from home because Emily has a cold? And even if Roy did give me rides to and from work I do take the subway for other things. The whole foundation of your argument is completely riddled with holes considering it doesn’t eliminate the subway from how I get around the city entirely.”

“It could, if you wish it.” Miranda’s lips were dangerously close to being pursed.

“No, of course that’s not what I wish. Haven’t you been listening? I’m just pointing out the flaws in logic.” She pointed to herself. “Journalist, it’s what I do.”

Andy got the distinct impression that Miranda was trying not to breathe fire at her. She glanced out the window for a few long moments before letting out a breath slowly. Andy watched her carefully, waiting for what Miranda would do. She had known going into this that she and Miranda were going to disagree sometimes, it was just a matter of fighting the battles worth fighting and letting the others go, and this was one to fight. She couldn’t make Roy get up any earlier than he already did. He worked the longest days out of all of them.

Miranda turned back to her slowly. “Andrea…” she trailed off. “I understand what you are saying about not wanting to inconvenience anyone, but there’s more than just you to think about now. The less stress that you have to deal with the better, and I think that this would help you.” Miranda’s tone was controlled and level and at a normal volume. Andy wondered just how much she was reigning herself in to keep this calm. “If Roy picks me up first at eight a.m. as he normally does, we could pick you up at eight thirty and drive to Elias-Clarke together. It’s not a great distance from your apartment to downtown. No one would be terribly inconvenienced.”

Andy frowned. “Rush hour traffic wouldn’t let us get there on time, you and I know it.”

“Roy is rather resourceful with his back ways and short cuts. I have completely faith that if asked he would manage this as he does everything else.”

Andy sighed heavily. “Ok, but what about the days where you don’t go to the office, or I need to be there earlier than you, or any other iteration of that problem.”

“There are other drivers, Andrea, Roy is just my personal driver and therefore the one I trust. On those mornings you would just arrange for other transportation.”

“Or I could just take the subway,” Andy said stubbornly.

Miranda looked pained for half a second. “Andrea, really, I would feel better if you did not. I do not want to be distracted wondering each morning if you are going to be ok on your commute to work.”

Andy felt like she’d been gut punched. Miranda worried about her. To the point that she was going to inconvenience herself in whatever way just to make sure Andy was ok. Andy looked over the other woman whose blue eyes were so much more open than normal and wondered just what in the world that meant. Warmth suffused her being again. That seemed to be happening more and more now when she thought about Miranda and she wondered what that meant too.

“Ok,” Andy said, quietly, giving in. She could fight more, she could have her way, but that expression of concern was enough to quell any further arguments. “But as long as it’s only to and from work, Miranda. I do have to have my freedom.”

Miranda heaved a huge sigh like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. “I suppose that is also a fair compromise. The subway is busiest during the commute to and from work, so other times would not be as much of a worry.”

Andy nodded. “Right.”

“Eight thirty on Monday, then, you will be ready to go.”

“Of course, Miranda.”

“And for the days that you talked about, you will coordinate with my schedule and make sure that you have rides for those days as well.”

“Yes, Miranda.”

Miranda smiled for just a fraction of a second before settling back into her seat for the rest of the ride to Andy’s apartment. Andy wasn’t quite sure she knew just what had happened, but then again, she hardly ever did when it came to Miranda. She shrugged and relaxed back into the warm leather seats of the Mercedes. She wasn’t going to be too hard pressed to enjoy this new arrangement. She looked over at Miranda again. No, this new arrangement might be nice.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some hospital scenes, if that's not your thing, here is your warning.

Miranda sighed, the Book in her lap, but she couldn’t quite concentrate. For all intents and purposes her weekend had been relaxing. There was no reason that she shouldn’t be able to settle down and get some last minute work done before the week started. The twins were both asleep, Patricia was laying by the fire, snoring lightly. Working conditions were optimal, really. And still, she was staring off into space with a lead weight lining the bottom of her stomach. She felt as if something was wrong, but nothing was.

She put the Book aside and sighed. If there was going to be no work done tonight, perhaps she should just go to sleep early and wake up earlier the next day instead. During the night her brain might reset to allow her the chance to be a productive member of society. She huffed audibly. She absolutely detested nights like this, but they sometimes could not be helped, no matter how much she tried to power through them.

With her things put away and her cell phone clutched in her hand once more she walked across the room, pulling the doors on the fireplace and waking up Patricia in the process. She reached down and petted the furry head and clicked her tongue.

“Come on, girl, let’s go to bed.”

With a doggy huff, Patricia was on her feet and following Miranda from the room at a stately pace. Miranda smiled wistfully back at her canine companion. Gone were the days of boundless energy and running about the house as an uncoordinated puppy. There was no doubt that Patricia was getting older, but Miranda hoped that the old girl would last a few more years yet. She would miss the dog greatly when she was gone.

Miranda laughed to herself. She wondered what the people at Runway would think about her having a soft spot for a dog. They wouldn’t believe it, or perhaps they would slant it so that she could only have feelings towards animals because she was such a stunted human being. It would be something quite predictable, no doubt. For a community of artists, they were rather uncreative.

Andrea, however, would not be like the rest of Runway. She would believe quite readily that Miranda had a fondness of animals, that she had feelings outside of derision and iciness. She had seen both sides of Miranda, the Queen High Bitch and the caring side, and had accepted those to both be truly one person. Her heart beat a little harder at the thought, but Miranda ignored it, as she had for the last few weeks. There was no time to figure out whatever tricks her body was playing on her. Christmas was days away and Runway’s print deadline was right before the holiday and a million other things that were more of a worry that her oddly beating heart and the warmth that bathed her whenever she thought of Andrea anymore. She was just concerned for the girl, surely.

She walked into her bathroom and removed her makeup efficiently, looking up at the mirror and frowning. She had aged well, most assuredly, but that didn’t mean she liked how fifty looked on her more than any other woman. She finished the rest of her ablutions quickly enough and walked back out into her bedroom. Patricia was already on the side of the bed Miranda was not partial to, snoring yet again. Miranda laughed once to herself before walking to her dresser and pulling one of her favorite nightgowns out. If she was going to be restless maybe being comfortable would help settle her down.

She started to unbutton her blouse when her phone rang. She looked at the offending piece of technology. Who in the world would be calling her on a Sunday night? She picked it up and read Andrea on the screen. Her heart dropped into her stomach and she stabbed the answer button.

                “Andrea?” Miranda was breathless. Her heart beat harder as the silence on the other end of line stretched for long moments.

“Miranda?” Andrea’s voice was weak and in that moment every single one of Miranda’s fears manifested themselves.

“Andrea, what’s wrong?” Miranda’s handed buttoned her blouse back up without even thinking, holding her phone to her ear with her shoulder.

“I don’t feel well, Miranda. I think something might be wrong. Stomach hurts bad.”

Miranda’s eyes widened. “Andrea, where are you right now? Are you at home?”

“Yeah,” the younger woman breathed out.

Miranda slipped back into the heels she had worn earlier that day. “Call an ambulance, Andrea. Tell them to take you to Presbyterian. I will meet you there. Dr. Patel has privileges there, I will call her and inform her as well.” She snapped into planning mode, shoving her worry into the back of her mind. That was the last thing Andrea needed now, for her to panic and not be of any use.

“Don’t wanna hang up.”

“You have to, darling, for the baby’s sake. You have to make sure that they are alright. Can you do that, or should I call instead?” She thanked every god that she knew that she had a photographic memory and that Andrea’s address was in her memory banks.

“Maybe you should. I’m…” she trailed off with a groan.

“Ok, Andrea, I am hanging up now but I swear to you I will meet you at the hospital, understand?”

“Yes, Miranda.”

Miranda hung up the phone and immediately dialed 911. The dispatched picked up on the second ring and Miranda couldn’t recall ever being more relieved.

“911 what is your emergency?”

“I believe that my friend is having pregnancy complications, she’s having stomach pain and is in a good amount of pain.”

“What’s her address?”

“3203 Essex Street, apartment 405.”

“Lower East Side?”

“Yes.”

“An ambulance will be there in ten minutes. Will you be there to open the door?”

“No, I’m across town. My friend called me sounding out of sorts and I told her I was going to call an ambulance. I’ll be meeting her at the hospital.”

“Alright ma’am, if you could the super and let them know that we’re on our way.”

“I will do that.”

“We’ll do our best to keep your friend safe and meet you there.”

Miranda hung up the phone and dialed the super. A quick few words and the man was standing by and waiting to let the men up to Andrea’s apartment. She grabbed her purse and coat from the closet and frozen. The twins. Someone had to watch the twins. She couldn’t just leave them alone. Cara wouldn’t be there for hours yet and the girl lived too far across town to be of use to her right now.

Her phone was in her hand again and she was dialing Martha without thinking.

“Hello?” Martha groused into the phone. Her accent was more prominent when she was tired, it always had been.

“Martha, Andrea’s on her way to the hospital. I need to go. Can you come to watch the twins for the night? I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but—”

Martha cut her off. “Say no more, give me ten minutes and I’ll be there.”

The franticness that had almost taken Miranda over faded in that second. “Thank you,” she sighed out.

She hung up the phone and started to pace the foyer. She knew that it wouldn’t help pass the time, but that was all she could do. Her mind went over every single thing that could be wrong with Andrea. The images were disturbing, but she felt a disconnect from the emotions the thoughts should provoke. Instead she was planning eventualities for each and every outcome. She was dying for an assistant to terrorize with details for plans that amorphous at best. She needed more information, that was how she lived in the business world. She always had information than any of her detractors that tried to come for her head. Here, however, she had little information and would have no more until she showed up at the hospital and badgered a doctor into telling her what she needed to know.

As promised there was a knock on the door ten minutes later and Miranda was thankful that Martha still remembered how to get ready in under two minutes from her residency days. She threw open the door and Martha was through the front door in a second, shutting it behind her. She grabbed Miranda’s Porsche keys and handed them to her.

“Go, be with her, she’s going to need someone there with her,” Martha said. “I’ll take care of the girls and let them know what’s going on if you aren’t back by morning.”

Miranda nodded and didn’t need to be told twice. If there was anyone that she trusted her girls with perhaps even a bit more than herself it was Martha. Martha at least knew how to save the girls if they were dying, she did not. Not that her girls were going to have anything wrong with them in the near future. Her heart sped up just at the thought as she propelled herself to her car. She shouldn’t think such thoughts. God knew she didn’t think thinking things could actually make them happen, but she wasn’t going to chance it in this instance just in case.

The Porsche roared to life and she was out on the streets of New York just as soon as the garage door opened. She flew down familiar streets, thankful that traffic was light. It was Sunday night at a rather late hour, after all, but that didn’t mean much in a city that never slept. She whipped into Presbyterian’s parking lot ten minutes later. She barely remembered to slam the car door behind her and she wasn’t sure at all if she remembered to lock the thing. She didn’t care.

Her heels clicked hurriedly on the pavement as they carried her into the hospital. She walked into the emergency room entrance and headed straight to the nurse’s station. She didn’t care who she had to behead, she was going to find Andrea as soon as possible. She would disassemble the board of directors if she had to, pull all her donations, anything she needed.

“I’m looking for Andrea Sachs. She should have arrived in the last few minutes by ambulance,” Miranda demanded of the woman sitting down, idly typing away on her cell phone.

The woman looked up at Miranda. “Um,” she slid over to the computer, typed in something slowly and looked back up at Miranda. “We’ve had a couple people come in in the last few minutes. No one is in the computer as Andrea Sachs, but that’s not unusual for recent arrivals.”

Miranda leaned just the barest inch forward. “And while I do understand that your staff is not competent enough to log people as they come through the doors, I do need to find out whether Andrea Sachs is in this hospital right at this very moment. It would be rather unfortunate for the board to figure out that Miranda Priestly was kept from helping a friend in need by their staff, don’t you think?” Her voice was barely above a whisper and decidedly icy.

The nurse paled considerably and typed a few more things into the computer in front of her rather frantically. Miranda smirked just the barest bit. Power and money were wonderful things to have when you needed something done. She was sure every employee in this wretched hospital heard her name at every insipid banquet, gala, or whatever else where they celebrated the people who contributed to the hospital in some way. Her praises would be sung greatly, she was sure, as much money as she funneled into this place. Her money was earmarked specifically for the treatment of children, but she was sure they did not care. Money was money after all.

“Well, Ms. Priestly, of the arrivals recently only one was a woman, somewhere in her twenties, five eight and a hundred and thirty-five pounds. That’s all the information we have on the woman. She was out of it when they brought her in. She was in too much pain, I think.”

Miranda leaned forward again, feeling like a cobra that was about to strike. That sounded enough like Andrea she needed to be sure. “Where is she?”

“Well, what they did manage to get out of her in her state was that she was pregnant and so she’s having an emergency ultrasound now to check what’s going on with her baby. From the symptoms listed on her profile that’s probably the most likely thing.”

Miranda’s fists clenched just slightly. “Take me to her.”

The nurse shrank back just slightly. “I can’t ma’am. The doctors will need their room to work and if anything goes wrong they can’t have anyone around to distract them.”

At least the girl was smart enough not to mention that Miranda wasn’t family. As if that mattered to a person like her. She would go where she wanted when she wanted it. But now, the nurse did have a point. Miranda stood up straight again and took a step back.

“Fine, but I want to be notified immediately when the doctors know anything at all about her condition.”

The nurse nodded quickly. “Of course. If you’ll make your way to the waiting room in the interim I will be sure a doctor finds you.”

Miranda’s lip curled at the thought of actually waiting in a hospital waiting room. For right now, though, it would be the place where she would be found the quickest, and so she nodded tersely and turned to where the woman was pointing.

“Oh, um, since you’re her friend do you know any of her medical history? Most importantly any allergies. It’s important for the doctors to know, but since she’s not very responsive…” She trailed off at Miranda’s renewed glare.

“She’s allergic to Sulfa and strawberries, nothing else to my knowledge.” Miranda was infinitely glad she had peaked at the two sets of paperwork that Andrea had filled out both at Martha’s office and at Dr. Patel’s. “As far as a more detailed medical history of Andrea I know where that can be found as well. Someone will fax it to you within the hour.”

The woman nodded again. “Ok, your help is appreciated.”

Miranda scoffed, but did not lower herself to a response. She wasn’t helping anyone other than Andrea, no matter how they saw it. She had her way into the waiting room and sat down. Her phone was out again in a second, quickly firing off a text to Martha that the hospital would need Andrea’s medical records with a short status update. Once that was done she sat back and started to tap her heels on the ground, not able to keep as deathly still as she normally would.

Andrea hadn’t been coherent and only partially responsive, that worried her greatly. It could not be a good sign that she was in that much pain. Miranda swallowed hard. The other woman had just accepted that she wanted the child, how in the world would she feel if they were ripped away from her only a few weeks after? No matter what Miranda was going to be there for the girl, of course, but something so emotionally scarring, she wasn’t sure she really knew how to help. Martha would know, of course. Yes, if it came to that, she would ask Martha. The woman was a doctor, of course she would know. If she didn’t, she could give Miranda the number of someone who did. She would be there for Andrea in every single way possible.

But until she knew for sure she was going to hope against hope that both Andrea and the baby were fine. Even if they were fine after this Miranda was going to make the girl take her week’s paid vacation at the very least. She would need time to recover and Miranda wanted to be sure that both mother and baby were truly fine before subjected to the stresses of Runway once more. She bit the inside of her lip wondering if there were any feasible way she could let Andrea work from home instead of having to come in instead. The other woman would still be earning her paycheck even if she wasn’t actually on site. She nodded to herself. She would have to look into that more once this was all over.

Long minutes passed into an hour and then an hour and a half. Miranda grew tired of sitting in one place finally and started to pace the waiting room. She had half a mind to go harass the nurse again for information. Surely by now there had to be something, but she held herself back. The less distraction the staff had the better they could treat Andrea. But that didn’t make waiting, not knowing anything more bearable.

Finally, just as Miranda thought that she was truly going to lose her mind, a man in green scrubs came out and looked around for just a second before heading right to her. Miranda felt a little faint at the prospect of finally knowing what was going on. The relief, however, was incomplete since she didn’t know whether the news would be bad or good.

“Ms. Priestly,” the doctor said in a deep, soothing voice. “You’re here for Andrea Sachs, are you not?”

She nodded wordlessly, her eyes telling the man to get on with whatever he had to say.

“I have good news to start off with then. It looks as if both Andrea and her baby are going to be fine. From what we can tell it looks like Andrea’s body failed at an attempt to miscarry the baby. Everything is checking out normal in the tests we can run, but of course Andrea will have to be extra careful for the rest of pregnancy just to make sure everything checks out well. Her OBGYN checked in during the procedure so she’s now in the loop. The amount of tests and appointments she’ll be scheduled for will increase, but since everything is looking well now hopefully that will just be a precaution and nothing will happen. She’s got a little fighter in there.” The doctor smiled warmly.

Miranda closed her eyes and let out a breath of pure relief. Everything had turned out as well as it could have. “Will she need to take off work, and if so for how long?”

He tilted his head to the side for a second. “I’d say a week to monitor everything and if nothing changes her OB should be able to clear her to go back to work at the end of it, but she should still take it as easy as possible.”

Miranda nodded. “I will see that she does. May I see her now?”

The doctor nodded. “Of course, we’re going to admit her for a twenty-four hour watch period, but while her room in the main hospital is being prepared she’s in one of the rooms down here. If you’ll follow me I’ll take you to her.”

The doctor turned back towards the ER and Miranda followed him obediently, heels clicking loudly on the tile floor. The nurse Miranda had harassed earlier watched them go past, flinching just a little bit. Miranda was not as amused as she normally would be by the reaction, but her sense of humor was starting to creep back slowly now that she knew that both Andrea and child would be fine at this juncture. Everything would be much better when Andrea was out of the hospital, however.

The doctor stopped outside one of the rooms with the sliding glass doors shut. He cracked open the door and gestured inside. “I think she’s probably asleep considering how much energy her body burned through tonight, but here you are.”

Miranda looked at the man for a long second before sighing and stepping forward. “Thank you, doctor.”

“Of course. Her attending for the twenty-four hour watch will be down soon. I’ll send them your way after they’re done getting briefed.”

“I appreciate it.” Miranda would make sure that the attending knew that his job depended on Andrea receiving the best care possible during her stay. A lethal smirked curled its way onto her face. Oh yes, they wouldn’t soon forget that little fact after she was done

She disappeared inside Andrea’s room, rolling the door shut behind her and blocking out the sounds of a busy ER. Miranda turned in the darkened room to look at Andrea, laid out on the small bed, breathing quietly. The sound brought Miranda peace. She sighed and walked forward silently. Andrea was pale enough that Miranda could tell even in the dim light. She reached forward and brushed a piece of hair back that had fallen in the girl’s face. Andrea sighed and turned into Miranda’s hand just as Miranda’s fingers tucked the piece behind the girl’s ear. Miranda kept her hand against Andrea’s face for a few seconds before withdrawing.

Her Andrea was ok. Miranda swallowed and let out a shaky breath. Her hand drifted down and grasped Andrea’s lightly. Seeing her now, pale and small looking in this hospital bed was upsetting, surely, but still, she would be ok. And that was the important detail in all of this. Miranda felt tears pricking at the sides of her eyes again and she fought them back. It would not do for Andrea to wake up to Miranda crying, even if now they were more tears of relief than anything else.

She stood by Andrea’s bedside for a few minutes, just watching the other woman sleep, before she shifted on her feet. Her feet were tired and she really would like to sit. She looked over in the corner and found a chair. She bit her lip for a long second, considering. Moving it would probably be loud enough to wake Andrea, and she didn’t want that. The woman needed her rest, but she also didn’t want to be so far from Andrea either. She debated for a few seconds before walking over to the chair. She pushed it and was pleased to find that the chair was on wheels that while they didn’t move silently, moved quietly enough that Andrea shouldn’t wake up.

Miranda quickly moved the chair to Andrea’s bedside and slipped off her heels. She curled into the chair, feet under her, before she reached out and took Andrea’s hand again. Her thumb made slow lazy circles of the smooth skin below it. Andrea was ok. She couldn’t stop thinking that one thought, but she found she didn’t mind in this instance.

She dug her phone out of her purse and texted Martha with an update with her free hand. Martha texted back quickly that she was glad Andrea and the baby were ok and asked how Miranda herself was doing. Miranda sighed at the text message. She couldn’t lie to Martha, she would know and badger Miranda until she told the truth. She was not ready to face that sort of onslaught just yet, but neither was she truly ready to put words to the emotions that were still swirling through her faster than a tornado.

 _I’m not sure yet_ , Miranda texted back. It was true in a way and hopefully Martha would give her the time to process that she needed. She put down her phone and held her head in her free hand. Martha was truly a wonderful friend that Miranda probably did not deserve most days, but there was a reason she did not do many close personal relationships. They were exhausting, not just in the time required to keep them up when she already had a hellacious schedule, but emotionally. People who were close to you could see your weaknesses and hit them hard. They could hurt you just as much as they could love and help you.

Miranda looked up at Andrea again. And here she was, falling down the same rabbit hold yet again. How in the world could she let herself? She sat with that thought for just a minute, eyes tracing the gentle planes of Andrea’s young face. She didn’t understand how the girl was so open. Andrea was so like herself, but so very different. It was as Miranda had told the other woman that first day in the car on the way to Martha’s office. Her openness and kindness made all the difference, tempering the bad aspects of their shared personality traits. And in light of that, really, how could she not fall down the rabbit hole once more. She was drawn in. Andrea made it so easy, really.

She looked away. She could not handle anymore thoughts of that sort tonight. Miranda picked up her phone again, ignoring the returned text from Martha. She pulled up Emily’s number and started to fire off a massive message that outline exactly what she wanted done for the next twenty-four hours and then some. Someone would need to put in Andrea’s request for sick leave or vacation, whatever was more convenient, she couldn’t be bothered with such things. Her schedule would need cleared for the next day. The Book would have to be picked up from her home. She would have to text Martha to let her know that the Book was in her room and to put it on the table in the front hall. It had no corrections, but at least her team could add to whatever else. She frowned. Nigel could look over the Book. He would catch most of the basic errors if nothing else. She nodded at that and started texting him as well.

When everything was planned out again she felt just a bit better, more in control. She sighed out a quiet breath. She was so very tired now that the adrenaline had worn off. She didn’t want to fall asleep just in case Andrea woke up. As disoriented as she had been upon arriving, she might not know where she was and be frightened being in a strange place. But Miranda’s eyelids felt like lead and if she didn’t have something to distract her then she was going to fall asleep. There was really no avoiding it.

She returned to Martha’s text message with a sigh. It was something to do, she supposed.

**Ok, but eventually you’ll have to figure it out. For most it isn’t a hard question when sitting in a hospital. Unless they’re a doctor. And even then.**

Miranda rolled her eyes at Martha’s response. The woman was almost childish sometimes for a woman in her fifties.

_Does tired, relieved that Andrea is fine, and scared that something might still happen cover how I’m feeling accurately enough for your tastes?_

**It’s a start** , was Martha’s almost instant reply.

_Shouldn’t you be asleep to prepare for your work day?_

**We both know I’ve been through worse than a few hours lost sleep. You were there after twenty-four hour shifts, remember.**

Miranda snorted quietly at that. Oh, she remembered. Martha had looked half dead after each and every one of those shifts. She didn’t know how she put up with four years of it. Then again she supposed the same question could be asked of her.

**But you’re avoiding the real issue.**

_How am I avoiding the real issue? I answered your question of how am I feeling._

**For a rather brilliant woman you’re rather dense sometimes.**

Miranda could almost feel the look that Martha was giving her through the phone. She rolled her eyes and thought about just putting her phone away and finding a magazine somewhere around the ER and dissecting each and every mistake they made instead. It would be less trying to her patience at least.

_Martha I am exhausted. It is three in the morning and I am sitting in a hospital ER with my assistant. You are going to have to be more explicit than a veiled question about my well-being that is apparently something more than the face value most normal people mean when they ask how you are doing. Contrary to my employees rumors I cannot read minds and even if I could I do not know if I could manage such a feat in the state I am in right now._

**Miranda, read back that last message and tell me what’s wrong with it. What about it clashes with the image that the newspapers have of you. I’ll even give you another hint, we’ve already talked about this. About two weeks ago at dinner. Is that enough for your addled mind?**

Miranda sat back after that, looking at Martha’s message, and then her own before it. She didn’t see what was wrong with the last message that she had sent. She had said she was here at the hospital with Andrea and that she was too tired for Martha’s games. The only thing the papers would be surprised about was the fact that she hadn’t taken Martha’s head off any more than she did.

She looked up at Andrea. The woman was still sleeping peacefully. Miranda smiled at her, if only slightly, and squeezed her hand gently.

She looked back at her phone and reread the message yet again after a minute of thinking of other things. She blinked once and then twice. Assistant. That was the word that had Martha all tied in a knot. Snippets of the conversation at Smith and Wollensky came back to her slowly.

 _“…you’ve mentioned Andrea five separate times the entire time we’ve been at dinner…_ _You never mention anyone that frequently unless it’s the girls…_ _you never get close to your employees…_ _you and I both know that you wouldn’t be here with Emily…_ _If I understood maybe I could imply things, but…”_

Miranda shuddered at the bits of remembered conversation. She still wasn’t quite sure what it all meant, but she could understand that while Martha hadn’t been implying anything two weeks prior, she most assuredly was now. She had to be, or else why would she be prodding Miranda like this on tonight of all nights?

_Are you finally implying something, Martha?_

**What do you think?**

Miranda set her phone aside. That meant of course in Martha’s particular vernacular. She was not ready for this conversation. Martha would not spare her, would not let Miranda come to her own conclusions. If she thought that Miranda needed to know something, then she would be as blunt as a sledgehammer and Miranda could no longer deny whatever it was she had been avoiding before. She absolutely hated Martha for that tendency, but at the same time it had done her some good over the years so she couldn’t resent it. Much.

She looked up at Andrea once more. Martha was right. She would not have rushed out of her house in the middle of the night if Emily was in the hospital. She hadn’t before Paris when she’d gotten hit by a car and she still wouldn’t now. She would do the same as she had done then, send a bouquet of flowers that Andrea would pick out for her once more.

But Andrea was different than Emily and she always had been. She was not a clacker wanna be. She did not worship the ground that Miranda walked on. Sure, the girl admired her now that she was over her fear of Miranda, but that was entirely different. She had broken the mold in a great many ways.

Miranda’s heart warmed slightly as she remembered the girl walking in that first day in her hideous clothing. Even then there had been something…charming, if horribly naïve about the girl. Then it warmed more when she remembered the girl’s transformation. She had lost some of that nativity and started to take herself seriously and yet she still believed in the good of the world. She was such an odd mix of thing Miranda could not imagine being herself. For the first time in a great while she found herself wanting to know more.

She looked away from Andrea again and the warmth within faded just a bit. This was not the place for grand thoughts about any relationship, let alone one Miranda was so unsure of. Perhaps she just wanted to be the girl’s friend. That was the most plausible thought after all. Yes, that would be where she left it for now, until all of this mess was over and Andrea was safe at home.

The doctor came in with a smile on his face. “We’re ready to move her up to the general admissions floor. Miranda nodded and stood up, slipping her heels back on and grabbing her things swiftly. She pushed the chair out of the way as the doctor unlocked the wheels on the bed and started to wheel her towards the door. Miranda took a deep breath as she emerged into the harsh light of the florescent bulbs lining the hallway. She felt a little more normal in the light than she had in the darkness of Andrea’s room.

She started to gear herself up for the confrontation with the attending doctor. She would need the best of the Ice Queen if she was going to suitably impress upon the new man or woman just how critical the best care possible was to their own wellbeing as well as Andrea’s. Her phone vibrated again in her purse but she ignored it. Everything else could wait until further notice.

She smiled humorlessly and strutted down the hall into the elevator right behind Andrea.   

 


	10. Chapter 10

Andy blinked open her eyes. She felt like she’d gotten hit by a Mack truck. She groaned quietly. Heavens above how in the world was she even going to manage getting out of bed today, let alone going to work?

She blinked again and actually registered where she was, which was definitely not her bedroom. From the looks of it, she was in a hospital room. She squinted her eyes and tried to remember just how she had gotten here. The last few things she could remember were cloudy. She’d been in pain, she could remember that. Jeeze, she had been in pain. Her body shuddered just remembering it. But she couldn’t remember what hurt exactly. Or how that had ended up with her here.

She pushed herself, trying to remember a bit more. Her eyes widened. She had called Miranda. She remembered the other woman’s voice cutting through the fog of pain. But then Miranda had had to hang up for some reason. She couldn’t imagine Miranda doing that unless it was for a good reason, not if Andy had sounded in pain on the phone.

The baby. Oh god if she was in the hospital, was her baby ok? She jerked up suddenly and felt at her stomach. She cursed that she wasn’t far enough along to really tell by the look of her stomach. Was her child ok? She looked around frantically. There had to be some sort of call button. A nurse would know if her baby was ok.

“Oh, Andrea, you’re awake,” Miranda’s voice sounded completely and utterly relieved.

Andy’s eyes found Miranda and her franticness faded just a bit at the sight. Miranda was still in the outfit from the day before and yet she barely had a hair out of place by normal standards. By Miranda standards, though, Andy could tell that Miranda was looking worse for wear.

She couldn’t find the words to ask the question she desperately needed to know the answer to, but Miranda understood. The older woman walked closer to the bed and grabbed up Andy’s hand and squeezed it. She smiled, that tiny little Miranda smile that Andy saw so rarely.

“Your baby is fine Andrea.”

Relief washed over Andy and tears pricked at her eyes. She blinked again and the tears were flowing down her face. Thank god. Thank anyone who would listen, really. Her free hand rubbed her stomach gently. She couldn’t even imagine what she would have done if…

She let that thought trail away without finishing it. There was no need for that. Her baby was safe.

Miranda’s other hand came up and wiped the tears from Andy’s face gently. “It will be all right.”

Andy leaned into the warmth of Miranda’s hand. She sighed out a shuddering breath. “What happened exactly? It’s hazy and I remember calling you, but nothing after that.”

“You called me and were in pain and so I called an ambulance for you. I met you here. We are and New York Presbyterian Hospital. From what the doctor told me your body almost miscarried your baby, but failed at the last second. They are keeping you for observation for a few more hours yet to make sure everything will be alright with the both of you and then you will need to take at least a week off work and take it easy for the rest of your pregnancy. There will be more doctors visits now since your pregnancy has entered into the high risk category. If you want more accurate information I can always go find your doctor for you.”

Andy shook her head and took another deep breath as her head spun with all the information Miranda had just told her. “Um, not right now. Can you just sit with me a while?” What she really wanted more than anything was to be held, but she didn’t think she was quite there with Miranda yet, even as the woman was wiping tears off of her face. Whatever their relationship was now, she didn’t want to strain it by requesting too much too soon.

Miranda nodded and pulled over a chair that had been pushed off a little to the side. She folded her feet under her and sat down, her hand sliding down from Andy’s face to her other hand. She sighed and squirmed just a little bit to find a comfortable position.

Andy watched the older woman, feeling much better with the woman gripping both of her hands in a gentle, yet firm grip. She took another shuddering breath, but her eyes were dry again and she did not feel the need to cry anymore. It was scary to be in the hospital, certainly, but Miranda was here and that meant the world to her. She also had no doubt that the Dragon Lady aspect of Miranda’s personality would come out if anything or anyone tried to harm her. It was more comforting a thought than perhaps it should have been, but Andy didn’t care. She felt warm and safe right now and that was what mattered.

She blinked. “Miranda, what about the girls? If you left in the middle of the night—”

“Martha is watching them. I called her right after I called the ambulance for you. They are at school right now and Martha is at her office. Cara will pick them up after school as normal and by the time she will get off, you will be out of the hospital.”

Andy relaxed again. She didn’t think that Miranda would leave the girls to fend for themselves, but she was glad to know for sure anyway. “Good.” She relaxed back into the bed again and sighed. She was still a little tired even after sleeping god knew how long. What time was it anyway? She looked around for a clock and found one right beside the door. It was just after one in the afternoon.

She glanced at Miranda in surprise. Miranda was here, her cell phone hadn’t gone off once in the ten minutes they were here, on a work day. The woman had to have been here at least twelve hours and she was continuing to stay by Andy’s side without Runway interrupting. She swallowed hard. Miranda had done all of that for her, put work aside, left the twins in the middle of the night, even though plans had been made for both the twins and Runway, she knew what that meant for Miranda. She hadn’t even known she was that important to the woman.

Andy squeezed Miranda’s hands. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Miranda looked into Andy’s eyes. Andy could see the normal dismissal was on her tongue, but she held it back. “You are welcome, Andrea. I mean this when I say I would do the same thing over again.”

She nodded, taking Miranda’s word for truth without question. There was steel in Miranda’s eyes that kept her from doubting anything. Andy wondered just where in the world she would be in the world without the older woman. Certainly a mess, no doubt.

But even with Miranda’s help, she never carried Andy. She just supported her as Andy came to the decisions needed and helped make those choices easier. She’d never had that before. Everyone else’s version of help just made the decisions for her and then if she didn’t do things their way said she was doing everything wrong. It was refreshing to have someone break that paradigm, even if Miranda was the most unexpected person to do that.

Andy could feel her feelings towards Miranda shifting. They had been shifting for some time now, but now it was definite. Her feelings had been shifting like tectonic plates, a few centimeters at a time to create something new, but now it was like an earthquake had struck and the land was completely changed. Andy didn’t know how to navigate the new territory just yet, but she would figure it out. But perhaps not here, not in a hospital, right after she had almost miscarried the baby inside of her. She needed a clear head for this, she could feel that.

A nurse walked in and pulled to two of them from the moment they’d been having. Andy swallowed again and took a deep breath. The nurse smiled at her and came over to her side.

“Well, good morning sleeping beauty. Good to see you awake and looking better. I’ll just take your vitals to see how you’re doing and then I’ll go tell the doctor you’re up and around so he can see you and check you out, ok?”

Andy nodded. She hoped the doctor would take his time to allow her a bit more time to pull herself together. It was a rather busy hospital, maybe she would be lucky in that respect.

The nurse took her blood pressure and listened to her lungs. She looked at the readings of her heart monitor and the fetal monitor that were strapped to Andy. She nodded and wrote everything down.

“Looks like you and your baby are doing A ok.” The woman smiled. She closed the cover on the tablet she was using and nodded. “The doctor will be in as soon as possible, ok?”

Andy nodded again. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

The nurse left the room and Andy sighed. She felt tired again, but then again with all her body had went through in the last twenty-four hours it wasn’t really a wonder. But really, what was more prevalent was the mental exhaustion. She had been running and running for a while, accepting everything that was thrown at her because that was all she really could do. Maybe the week that Miranda would surely force her to take off would give her time to truly catch up with everything. Then again every time she thought that something shifted again and she was left scrambling. That, she supposed, was just how life worked really.

She closed her eyes and sunk further back into the pillows.

“Andrea, are you all right?” Miranda’s voice was concerned.

“Yes, I’m fine, just a bit tired again, but it’s nothing major.” She opened her eyes and turned to Miranda and smiled weakly. “It’s not every day you wake up in the hospital, you know?”

“Thank the heavens that is not a daily, weekly, or even yearly occurrence, Andrea. I don’t know that I could handle it.”

Andy hummed her agreement.

They sat in silence for a while, Miranda still holding the hand that the nurse hadn’t needed for the blood pressure measurement. Andy let her mind wander, let it soak up everything that had happened slowly, at its own pace. Her thoughts circled around a little bit, but in general as she processed everything she slowly settled down once again. The journalist in her could take the information that was thrown at her and break it down easily into facts that could be reassembled in a story that made sense to her once more. She had almost had a miscarriage. Almost. Modifiers were important in such cases. She was fine now. And so was her baby. It wasn’t a headlining story for anyone except her, but she would most certainly take it. And once everything was broken down into pure fact and rewritten in her own mental words, it was easier to take. She didn’t understand just why, maybe it was just a thing that writers did.

The doctor walked in about forty-five minutes later. He was handsome, tan, white smile, the generic sort of man that Andy thought of when she thought of a doctor at a prestigious hospital, as ridiculous as that was. He held out a hand for her to shake and nodded respectfully at Miranda. Miranda nodded back and Andy could swear that she saw just the tiniest flash of fear in the doctor’s eyes. She wondered what in the world the older woman had done to him to cause him to have that look. Usually she only saw that look in the face of people in the fashion and publishing world. She’d definitely have to ask Miranda about that later.

“Hello there, my name is Dr. McAllister. It’s nice to see you up and around.” He looked over at Miranda. “I take it your friend has informed you of what happened while you were asleep.”

“The basics at least, yes.”

He pulled out Andy’s chart and went through the technicalities of what had happened to her the night before, but what it really boiled down to was what Miranda had told her in the first place just with more medical jargon. Andy just nodded along until he was done with the details and back into regular person speak again.

“You’ll need to take a week off, and you should probably have someone stay with you in the interim just in case. From what I understand you were alone when this happened and your friend called the ambulance for you. Until the week has passed it would be better if you avoided such risky situations.”

Andy frowned. She really didn’t have anyone to stay with her and it wasn’t like she could call her parents to come up to New York on a whim. They had jobs and lives back in Cincinnati that they couldn’t just drop. And if she called them to come up that would mean that she would have to explain to them what was going on, that she was pregnant, and she really didn’t know whose kid it was. She felt her heartbeat speed up just at the thought. No, that wasn’t an option. And there was no way she was calling her old friends. That was drama she did not want. Because if she told them they would tell Nate and god no.

She glanced over at Miranda. There was no way the older woman could stay with her. She had the girls to worry about. Besides that she wouldn’t want to stay in Andy’s grungy apartment anyway.

She opened her mouth to ask what she should do if there really wasn’t anyone to stay with her, but Miranda headed her off.

“She can stay with me then, if she needs someone around to make sure she is well.”

Andy drew back just the slightest inch, surprised. Miranda’s home was her temple. People were only let inside when they were trusted, and even then the farthest she had ever been in the townhouse was Miranda’s first floor study and that one misadventure up the stairs on that first night. To stay for a week, it was huge.

Miranda turned to look at Andy and her eyes clearly said that Andy was not to protest on possible pain of death. Andy’s eyes widened just a little bit and the protest that she hadn’t even really thought through died right there on her tongue.

“While I am at work there is a housekeeper and then my nanny and the girls are there after school and of course I will be there later in the evening. Andrea will have someone with her at all times.”

The doctor nodded. “Good, good. After a week and a check up with your doctor and OB you should be cleared to be on your own again, but better safe than sorry before that, yeah.” He smiled what had to be his most charming smile that got him anything he wanted.

Andy just nodded. She did agree, but even if she didn’t Miranda would make sure that she had no choice. It chafed against her sense of self at the same time that it made her feel safe and protected. Conflicting feelings when it came to Miranda were nothing new and so Andy just accepted it.

The doctor looked down at Andy’s charts on his tablet. “Everything looks good since you’ve been admitted. I think we can release you safely right after dinner if your readings stay the same. I can start the paperwork on that right now. Discharge paperwork always takes forever.”

“Thank you, doctor, your hard work is appreciated,” Miranda said, clearly dismissing the man.

He nodded again. “Of course. I’ll have the nurse send the paperwork when it’s ready for you to sign provided everything stays smooth sailing.” And with that he turned and left the room with one more winning smile.

Andy wanted to protest now that the man was gone, but that look Miranda had sent her earlier said that she would be risking death, even now that they were alone. It wasn’t in her best interest to fight, and it definitely wasn’t in the baby’s. As much as she hated not being consulted for this decision, the outcome was the same. She would have decided to go with Miranda anyway.

“Miranda, I really appreciate the offer of staying with you.” Andy held up her hand to silence Miranda’s impending protest. “I’m not saying I won’t stay with you. It is what makes the most sense everything considered, but really, I would have liked to have been asked, not told. The decision wouldn’t have changed. I know you’re my boss for most of the day, but if we’re going to keep doing this, if you’re going to be here with me and baby through everything, in this we’re going to have to be more equal. That means you ask me before making important decisions like this. You can lay out why it’s a good idea and why I should go with what you want to do, but I need the choice to be mine.”

Andy sat back as she watched Miranda consider the words. She knew that the little speech wouldn’t stop all of Miranda’s rather steam rolling ways, but perhaps she might stop and think before she did it, at least for the major things, and that was all Andy really wanted. The small things she had already learned not to sweat with Miranda.

Miranda was silent for a long moment before speaking slowly. “I suppose that is an amiable set of conditions. I’m sorry if I overstepped my bounds.”

Andy was a little in shock that Miranda apologized to her, but she was getting used to Miranda doing odd things around her. “No, no, it’s fine. I’m touched that you care so much that you would immediately open your home to me, but it’s a big decision that affects the both of us, so both of us should be part of the process, don’t you think?”

Miranda nodded. “You make a good point. I will keep that in mind.”

Well, that had been easier than Andy thought it would be. She was glad that she had stood up to Miranda on this point of all the things that had come before it, but she had thought it would be harder when she finally had spoken up against one of Miranda’s wide ranging decisions on her life. She tilted her head considering the older woman for a long second. Maybe Miranda was just too tired to really put up much of a fight. She had been here for god knew how long and probably hadn’t slept much, if at all, in that time. But she was sure that Miranda could pull through that easily. Something as mundane as sleeplessness didn’t dull Miranda’s fighting instincts. If anything, being tired made Miranda sharper.

Maybe…they were closer to being equal than Andy had thought. Miranda had just needed a little bit of a nudge. Most of Miranda’s relationships had her commanding from on high and she supposed Miranda had just gotten used to that. Or perhaps it was something different that Andy couldn’t put her finger on. She mentally shrugged to herself and sighed. She wouldn’t ever figure out Miranda completely and that was ok. She knew enough and was learning more all the time.

She yawned and Miranda reached out and took Andy’s hand. “Sleep, Andrea, you will need as much rest as possible for the next few days to help recover.”

Andy looked at Miranda. “And when was the last time you slept, Miranda. If anyone should be sleeping, it should be you.”

“Nonsense, Andrea, I’m not the one in the hospital.”

Andy cocked an eyebrow. Technically she was in the hospital, just not admitted.

Miranda glared at her. “You are well aware of exactly what I mean.”

“I do, but the point remains that you haven’t slept and contrary to what half of Runway believes you aren’t indestructible. I’ve woken up, the doctors say I should be fine. There’s nothing to worry about now so you can take a nap too.”

“And where, pray tell, Andrea, should I take this nap?” She swung her hands out to indicate the room. “There isn’t exactly another bed.”

Andy frowned. Miranda did have a point, but then again if the woman was really tired, which Andy knew she had to be, the chair she was sitting on would be good enough for a nap in nothing else.

“I mean, you can sit back in the chair. I didn’t say it would be a comfortable nap.”

Miranda scoffed. “I think not then, Andrea. I will just wait until I’m home with my soft, expensive bed that will not send me to half a dozen chiropractor visits.”

Andy’s frown intensified. She really, really wanted Miranda to sleep. She was worried about the woman, though she wasn’t quite so sure why the worry was so strong. She shrugged it off and scowled. Well, she could push the issue but in order to do that successfully Miranda had to have some place to lay. There was no way that Miranda would let her get up and arrange for Miranda to have a cot. It wasn’t like she could give up her bed to the woman either.

But she could scoot over and make room for the other woman.

Her eyes widened for a second. If she offered that option Miranda had the possibility of firing her. It seemed to be way over the line. At the same time, Andy was already scooting to the side and making as much room as possible, no matter the consequences. She patted the space beside her as Miranda looked on.

“Come on then, it’s a place to lay. It’s no expensive mattress, but it’s something.”

Miranda shook her head. “Nonsense, if I’m up there I will be disturbing your sleep.”

“Miranda, if you don’t sleep, I’m not going to sleep. You’ll be of no help to anyone if you’re too tired to stand up straight later.”

Miranda glared at Andy for a few long moments and Andy saw her life flash before her eyes for a second. The older woman gave death glare a whole new meaning. Andy wondered for the hundredth time since Miranda hired her if she would ever have half as an impressive glare in her arsenal. When she was a journalist a stare like that could get all the tough sources to crack in an instant.

With a long suffering sigh Miranda stood slowly. “Fine, if you insist, but you may not complain if I keep you awake in any way.”

“I highly doubt you will, but your point is duly noted.”

Miranda hesitated for just a few seconds longer before finally gingerly climbing onto the bed. She avoided touching Andy, acting as if she was made out of spun glass, not out of solid muscle and bone. Andy didn’t say anything, but just watched the other woman settle in carefully. Somehow she managed to fold herself to where she wasn’t touching Andy at all in the small bed. She had to be right on the edge, and Andy knew that couldn’t be comfortable, but she wasn’t going to push her luck any farther at the moment.

“Thank you,” Andy whispered before settling in a little more and letting her eyes slip closed. She really was bone tired again. It seemed rather incongruous. It wasn’t like she had almost died. It wasn’t like much had really happened at all. She shrugged it off and let herself relax and in a few seconds she was asleep.

 

A throat cleared loudly and Andy shot up groggily. Was she late for work? Was she sleeping at her desk? She couldn’t quite remember, but she had a sense of déjà vu. Her eyes blinked open to see the hospital room and she sighed. That’s why it felt familiar. She had already woken up completely confused once today. Last night had really done a number on her as cognitive function. She wondered if she should bring that up with the doctor or not. But then again she really wanted out of here.

A throat cleared again and Andy actually turned to face the doctor. He had a clip board in front of him. “Welcome back. It’s good that you’re resting, but I have the discharge paperwork ready for you. You just need to sign all the forms and then you should be good to go.” He held out the clipboard as he walked closer.

Andy took the clipboard, arm nudging a soft weight. She turned to see Miranda still asleep, curled around her side. The older woman really must have been tired if she was out of it. She smiled at Miranda tenderly before remembering that the doctor was still in the room.

“Do I give these to you when I’m done or do I give them to a nurse?” Andy asked turning away from Miranda.

“A nurse at the station will do. There’s a packet at the back that you keep that has more information about your condition and the follow ups that you’ll need to schedule in the next week. Other than that.” He stuck out his hand. “It was nice to meet you Ms. Sachs despite the circumstances.” He smiled that charming smile again.

Andy shook his hand firmly. “You as well, doctor.”

He nodded once more and turned to exit the room.

Andy looked through the paperwork, noting the places that were highlighted for her to sign. She frowned when she saw that Miranda had put this all on her insurance. She wondered when the older woman had done that. Then again, since she had been asleep most of her stay, that was really a no brainer. Miranda was really taking paying for her medical care seriously, for which Andy was glad since she didn’t have the money, but something in her still felt guilty, like she was taking advantage of Miranda somehow.

She looked at the older woman. She knew that Miranda didn’t think that or there would be no way she would be doing everything for Andy, but she still felt that little zing rocket through her as she signed the page with her confirmation. She really had already given Miranda permission to pay for her medical expenses, though really something this major wasn’t what she had in mind when she had agreed to Miranda picking up the tab for the visits to Dr. Jones and Dr. Patel.

She sighed and resisted the urge to reach out and brush the wild forelock off of Miranda’s face. She still had a lot of paperwork to get through and there was no need for Miranda to be awake just to watch her sign a bunch of papers. She turned back to the clipboard and scribbled down her name in yet another place before moving on.

Andy shook out her hand when she was done with the packet ten minutes later. She had the distinct impression that she had just signed her life away somewhere along the line, but at least she was free to go as soon as she handed in the packet to a nurse. She detached herself from Miranda’s side and walked over to the little wardrobe in the corner of the room. She wondered if the clothes she had came in wearing were still intact or if they’d been cut off of her. She frowned at that. She had been wearing her favorite pair of sweats last night and she really didn’t want to lose them. Andy opened the door to see that her sweats were there, neatly folded up in a plastic bag. She looked at them for a second before realizing there was a fair amount of blood on them. They might not have been cut off of her, but it looked like they were ruined anyway. She wondered why the hospital just hadn’t thrown them away, but she supposed it was less of a hassle to let Andy decide for herself.

She looked down at the next self to see a posh little overnight bag that certainly wasn’t hers, but neither was it Miranda’s. She knew all of Miranda’s bags after lugging them to fifteen million different photoshoots. She reached for it and unzipped it. Comfortable designer clothes were in the bag in her size. Miranda had obviously called Runway and had clothes messengered there for her for when she was discharged. Warmth swelled up within her as she pulled the bag into the little bathroom attached to her room and changed. Miranda had taken everything into account while taking care of her. It was rather sweet. That was never a word she would have associated with Miranda but it was true.

She walked back out now fully dressed to see Miranda taking up all of the small bed now, face serene in sleep. Andy didn’t quite have the heart to wake her just yet, but she didn’t have her phone to call Roy to come and get them. Miranda had to have her cell on her, though, since she had clothes to wear. She looked around and spotted Miranda’s latest Marc Jacobs bag on the floor by the bed. Her cell phone was peeking out right on top. She felt a little guilty grabbing it out, it was Miranda’s private property after all, but it was just for one phone call to their ride.

Andy dialed Roy and stepped out in the hall. He said he’d be there in fifteen and Andy thanked him once before hanging up. She walked back in the room, carefully placed Miranda’s phone back in her purse, and grabbed up her paperwork before running to the nurse’s station. She handed it off to a nurse with only a couple words exchanged before she walked back to the room. She knew that she couldn’t wait to wait up Miranda anymore. She looked at the clock. Just after six. At least the woman had gotten a fair amount of sleep, if not really enough.

She reached out and placed a gentle hand on Miranda’s shoulder. “Miranda, time to get up.”

Miranda mumbled sleepily, but didn’t stir much. Andy didn’t think she’d ever call Miranda adorable either, but here she was. She shook Miranda gently again.

“Come on, Miranda, time to get up. I’ve been discharged and Roy is on his way.”

Miranda mumbled again, but this time she at least moved. The older woman had to have been more tired than she had let on if she was this hard to wake.

“We can stop at Starbucks on the way to my apartment for coffee to help you wake up,” Andy said.

At that Miranda finally opened her eyes. “Don’t be foolish, Andrea, anything that you need from your apartment can be gotten by someone else. There’s no need for you to strain yourself anymore.”

Andy laughed softly at that. Of course she wasn’t foolish to mention the coffee even though it was past six in the evening. It was never too late for coffee in Miranda’s world. She wondered if the woman even felt the caffeine buzz anymore.

She sighed before answering. “Fine, as long as it’s not Emily. The last thing I need is her to fire ammo at me about my apartment being a wreck.”

“Serena then?”

“Not exactly in her job description, but yeah, she would be fine.”

“Her job description is what I say it is.” Miranda sat up and stretched. She threw her legs over the side of the bed and slipped on her heels. In a minute she looked like she had just gotten out of a board room instead of waking up from a five hour nap. “Come along then, Andrea.” She grabbed up her purse and strode from the room slowly to allow Andy to catch up easily.

Andy grabbed the overnight bag and followed Miranda out into the lobby. Roy was already there waiting for them. He grabbed the overnight bag from Andy with a smile. Both her and Miranda took their usual places in the back of the town car and they were off into Manhattan traffic a minute later.

The ride to the townhouse was silent for the most part. Miranda was typing on her phone and Andy, while more awake than she had been, wasn’t fully functional just yet. She figured she’d need an actual night of uninterrupted sleep to really be back in action. Hospitals weren’t really great for hardcore resting.

Miranda opened the townhouse door for them and stepped inside. A second later Andy heard thundering footsteps. The twins were in front of them a second later, throwing themselves into their mother’s arms and looking worriedly at Andy.

“Andy, are you ok?” Caroline asked quietly. “Martha told us that you were in the hospital.”

Andy nodded. “I’m fine now, thanks to your mom.”

“What was wrong?” Cassidy asked, pulling back from her mother

Miranda put a chiding hand on Cassidy’s shoulder. “That is a rather personal question, Cassidy.”

Andy waved Miranda off. “It’s fine, Miranda.”

Miranda shot her a concerned look but didn't say anything more.

“Well, you see girls, I'm pregnant and last night my body tried to get rid of the baby but the doctors stopped it and now both the baby and I are fine, just tired.”

Cassidy’s eyes widened. “You're gonna have a baby? Is it a boy or a girl?” She jiggled a little bit in excitement.

“I don't know yet. I'll find out in a few weeks, but right now it's too early to tell. I'm only about two and a half months along.” She smiled down at the girls for a second before letting her face fall into a serious expression. “But girls, you are the first ones I've told besides your mom and the doctors so I would really appreciate it if you guys could keep it to yourselves for a while so I can tell everyone else, ok?”

They both nodded solemnly. “Ok, Andy,” they said at the same time.

Miranda stepped up beside her daughters once more. “Come on, let's see what Roberta has left us for dinner. Andrea is going to be staying with us for a while, girls. She needs someone to help her while she's recovering.” She started to walk down the hallway on clicking heels as the rest of them followed. “I expect you to be on your best behavior for her and to help her out when needed since she is our guest.”

“Yes, Mom,” the twins said together.

Miranda smiled at them as she reached for the door for the oven as the rest of them filed around the island. “Thank you, Bobbseys.”

The smell of spices hit Andy in the face as Miranda took out a few dishes from the oven. Her stomach growled. She hadn't realized just how hungry she was until that moment. But the again she hadn't eaten in the hospital and the last time she had was the night before. She would be downing a rather large portion of whatever Miranda had just taken out of the oven no matter what it was.

“Chicken Marsala, naan, rice, and that cauliflower both of you like,” Miranda said as she lifted the lids.

The twins cheered and Andy smiled. Indian food, awesome. That would hit the spot.

“Set the table please, girls.”

The twins both shot up and grabbed plates and cutlery from the drawers before disappearing into the next room. Miranda grabbed up one of the dishes and followed. Andy sat for moment before she grabbed something and followed. Might as well help while she was there.

Miranda gave her a look that clearly communicated that guests didn't have to lift a finger but Andy just smiled and shrugged. The older woman gestured to a chair that Caroline had just finished setting.

“Sit, Andrea. What would you like to drink? There's water, juice of assorted types, and tea.”

“Um, apple juice?”

Miranda nodded then disappeared back into the kitchen with the twins. In a few minutes they were all sitting down eating. The twins were going on about their day at school and Miranda was listening intently, making comments in the right places. Andy just watched them interact as she tried not to eat her weight in Indian food. It was sweet to see the older woman interact with her girls as the little family they were. She knew Miranda always became softer when she was talking to the girls on the phone, but this was different. Miranda was freer here in her own home away from Runway. It warmed Andy to see this side of her.

When all their plates were empty Miranda looked up at Andy. “Andrea, are you all right? You've been rather quiet.”

“I’m fine, Miranda.” She smiled tiredly. “Just sleepy.”

Miranda stood up. “Come on, then, I will show you to the room you’ll use for the week. You’ll need pjs, yes?”

Andy nodded.

“I have some samples that I haven’t used. You can have your pick of them.” Miranda looked at the girls. “If you would clear away the plates and put them into the dishwasher when I come back down we will see about ice cream.”

The twin’s eyes lit up. “Awesome!” Cassidy jumped up and started to grab plates and cutlery as fast as she could without breaking anything. Caroline gathered things at a much more sedate pace. Andy laughed quietly at their antics as she followed Miranda out of the room.

Miranda led Andy up to a rather large closet on the second floor. She walked over to a dresser and pulled open a few drawers. The sorted through the clothes carefully, looking at Andy a few times just for a second before shaking her head and digging through the clothes some more. When Miranda finally looked at her and nodded she pulled out a pair of the softest flannel pants Andy had ever felt and a matching deep blue tank top.

“Those should work for you and keep you warm enough.”

Andy hugged the pants to her chest, running her fingers over them. “Yeah, I think so. I didn’t even know designers made flannel pjs.”

Miranda gestured at the clothes. “It’s a casual line from an up and coming designer in Norway. Warm pjs are rather necessary there.”

“Well, that’s definitely true. Thank you.”

“Of course, Andrea. I can’t have you getting cold, now can I? God knows the rumors that Runway would get out of that. I am the Ice Queen after all, if you were cold in my home they might just think that was literal.” Miranda’s eyes sparkled with humor. “Come on your room is next door.”

Miranda led them out of the closet and down to the next door. She opened the door and stepped aside. “Everything you need should be in there already, though if you need anything feel free to come and get me. I’ll be with the girls downstairs until they retire and after that I’ll be reviewing the Book in my study.”

Andy nodded. “Thank you again, Miranda. This really is wonderful.”

Miranda visibly hesitated for just a second before reaching out and taking Andy’s hand. “It really is nothing, Andrea. I would do it all again in a heartbeat.”

Andy squeezed Miranda’s hand gently. “You really aren’t the Ice Queen, Miranda, no matter what anyone says. They don’t see this side of you.”

“Few people do, Andrea. And that’s how it has to be to be a woman in business.” Miranda looked away. “I accepted that a long time ago. As long as it doesn’t affect those I care about…” she trailed off for a few seconds before looking back at Andy. “Sleep well.” She stepped back, letting her hand slip out of Andy’s grip. “I should be gone by the time you wake up, but the housekeeper should be here. The offer to call me for whatever you need still stands even during work hours.”

“Ok, good night Miranda.”

Miranda shot Andy the most fleeting, beautiful smile before turning and walking back up the hall and down the stairs. Andy watched her go, leaning against the doorway for a long moment before she finally walked into the room and slipped into bed, falling asleep quickly, her chest still full of that warm feeling that had been burning in her chest since she’d woken up at the hospital to find Miranda at her side. 


	11. Chapter 11

Andy woke up to whispering coming from the end of the bed.

“Cas, we shouldn’t be in here and you know it. Mom would have a fit if we woke Andy up.”

“She’s dead out, Caro, it’s fine. Besides, Mom already left for work and she can’t kill us if she’s at Runway.”

There was a short silence and Andy had the feeling that Caroline was shooting her sister a glare that could rival her mother’s.

“It’s fine. We can just say we were checking on her before we went to school.”

“That’s not why we’re in here and you know it.”

Andy heard the rustling of fabric like Cassidy was crossing her arms.

“It is too. You heard what she said last night, she almost lost her baby. You know Mom got up like three times last night to make sure she was ok. We both heard her door open.”

“Ok, fine, but that isn’t the entire reason.”

Cassidy huffed. “Fine, but that’s only because I really wanted to make sure that Mom did actually put her in Stephen’s old room instead of one of the guest rooms like she would have anyone else.” There was another short pause. “I really did want to check on her, that was just a secondary thing. She’s the nice one.”

“She is, yes. And as you can see, she’s also fine and resting, and also definitely in Stephen’s old room. Though it barely even qualifies anymore since Mom had it gutted right after he moved out. This place doesn’t smell like disgusting men’s cologne, alcohol, and those stupid cigars he thought Mom didn’t know about. So come on, let’s leave her to sleep. I did hear when she said she almost lost her baby and that means she needs sleep.”

Two sets of quiet footsteps exited the room. Andy waited a couple minutes to make sure the girls were really gone before she sat up. She looked around the room, all warm colors, cream, tan, and a pale green. The furniture was a light oak color to go with the rest of the décor. It was neutral decorating that almost verged on feminine. It didn’t look like a man had ever lived here at all. If the twins were right and this was Stephen’s room, Miranda had certainly gutted it all right. And why in the world had Miranda put her here instead of the guest rooms one floor up. She hadn’t thought about it last night, she’d been too tired, but now she wondered. The second floor was strictly a family floor, she knew. Why was she here?

She pushed herself up and out of bed, toes sinking into thick cream carpet that probably cost more per square foot than her rent. Maybe things would be clearer after a shower. But the again she really didn’t have anything to wear once she was out of the shower. She looked around the room and didn’t see a bag full of her clothing. Emily was probably going to do that later today. There was the closet Miranda had shown her yesterday or she could just change back into the pjs she had on. She frowned at that. Nope, closet it was.

Andy pushed open the door of her room quietly and slipped into the closet. It really was huge. Jesus. She looked around for a few long minutes, appreciating the styles available before picking out a comfortable looking pair of jeans and a sweater. She grabbed a tank top on the way out and laid everything out on her bed. She hoped Miranda didn’t mind later when she came home that Andy had borrowed clothes, but since all of the articles of clothing still had tags on them or were in their original garment bags, she was probably safe.

She heard the front door slam as she was opening her bedroom door. Well, it seemed the twins were off for the day. She couldn’t exactly imagine anyone else slamming a door in Miranda Priestly’s house except for them. She snorted, no, everyone else would be afraid that someone Miranda would know and verbally gut them for it.

She padded downstairs to the smell of fresh coffee and toast. Instantly her stomach growled. Jesus, she was hungry, and almost out of left field too. She continued into the kitchen to see a black woman cleaning up a few bowls and boxes of cereal. She looked up and smiled at Andy kindly.

“Come in, Miss Miranda said you’d be down sometime this morning,” her accent was thick and sounded like Spanish or maybe Portuguese, but slightly different. Andy thought she might be from Latin America somewhere, or maybe the Caribbean.

Andy walked over to the bar and pulled herself up on one of the stools carefully. She smiled at the woman, who had to be Roberta if she remembered what Miranda had said last night right.

Roberta slid a cup of coffee in front of Andy. “Don’t worry, honey, it’s decaf. Miss Miranda said you’re expecting a little one and to cook accordingly for your stay. Sugar or milk?”

“Both, please.” She smiled at the woman.

“Here you go, honey. Does a spinach omelet sound good for breakfast? Lots of folate and protein.”

Andy nodded. “If that included toast that would be great too.”

“Of course, toast is the best part of breakfast.” She winked at Andy before bustling around the kitchen, pulling things from the fridge and fetching down a frying pan from the rack hanging over the island.

Andy watched the woman work as she sipped her coffee. She woke up more slowly as the coffee warmed her. There was no caffeine, but the taste was enough to fool her body into thinking it was getting a pick me up. She couldn’t really even taste the difference so it really had to be the good stuff. She was sure Miranda, however, could have picked out the difference from fifty paces. She smiled behind her coffee cup as toast popped up from the toaster as Roberta poured the whisked eggs into the pan. The woman almost moved like a dancer in the kitchen, it was rather impressive. She buttered the toast all while keeping an eye on the omelet, adding spinach and feta cheese after a minute.

Another few minutes and Andy was sitting in front of a warm breakfast with a glass of what smelled like strawberry mango juice in front of her. “Thank you.”

“Of course, honey.” Roberta went to cleaning up the kitchen once more, leaving Andy to her breakfast.

Andy took one bite of the omelet and moaned. God, it was good. She saw a satisfied smile spread across Roberta’s face for just a second before she went back to cleaning. She made better omelets than Nate and he had spent a whole semester on the things in culinary school. She cleaned her plate quickly and then munched on the toast as she sipped her juice. The empty pit that her stomach had been minutes before was satisfied now.

She sighed as she ate the last bit of toast and stacked the little plate on the bigger one. She drank the last bit of juice and stood up to go take the plates to the sink. Roberta clicked her tongue at Andy. Andy stopped and looked at the older woman.

“Now, now, honey, no need for that. Miss Miranda pays me to do such things and I like to earn my keep. You go on now and get to resting.” She gently took the plates from Andy’s hands. “I’ll be around if you need anything. I’m thinking lunch could be a salad with chicken and orange segments mixed in with a vinaigrette of some sort, perhaps raspberry?”

Andy just nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Good, good.” She patted Andy on the shoulder before walking to the sink and washing the dishes Andy had just handed her.

Andy stood there for half a second more before wandering out of the room. She stopped in the hall, though. What exactly was she supposed to do all day? All of her stuff, including her laptop was at her apartment, which wouldn’t come until later. She didn’t have any books to read. She didn’t know where there was actually a TV in Miranda’s house, if there even was one. Well, there had to be one because of the twins, but still, she didn’t know where it was or even if she was welcome in the room it was in. She could nap, sure, but right now she had just woken up and she wasn’t tired.

She did know where Miranda’s study was, though. And she knew that there were books in there that she could read. She wondered if Miranda had good taste in literature. Probably, she had good taste in everything else. She’d at least been invited in to Miranda’s study before, even if that had only been while Miranda herself was in the room.

She shifted from foot to foot for a few seconds, but she had no ideas that were better so she finally started to walk. Miranda’s study was just as it was the last time she’d been in the room. Andy relaxed a little as she walked in and sat down on one of the surprisingly comfortable chairs. She curled up for just a second in the chair, tucking her legs up under her and just watching the dust motes float through the morning sun streaming in the windows. It was peaceful in here. She could see why Miranda had picked this room for her study. None of the normal noise of New York penetrated this room.

She stood after a few minutes and walked over to one of the bookcases. Andy looked at the titles on the bookshelf right in front of her. Fashion icon biographies, books of collections from years past, old copies of Runway lovingly put in protective plastic covers. Obviously this was Miranda’s fashion shelf, or perhaps bookcase in general as she looked at the rest of the shelves on the case in front of her and found more of the same. It made sense since this was Miranda’s study. Books on her trade belonged here, but it wasn’t exactly what she was looking for.

Andy moved down to the next case and started to look over the books there. She smiled as she read off the titles of classic literature. Of course Miranda would have a bookcase just devoted to the classics. Andy saw a few of her own favorites nestled among the shelves, obviously read, but still in very good condition. She smiled as she pulled Dracula from the shelf and placed it on the table by the chair she’d been in.

Now, however, she was curious. What did the rest of the shelves hold? She walked up to the next one and there was a great deal of modern literature. Haruki Murakami, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and a great many others counted books on the shelves in front of her. Andy ran her hands along the spines and smiled slightly. All of these were read too. She wondered where Miranda even found the time after working for hours on end.

The last shelf held what were obviously children’s books. The top few shelves held books that were worn and bent and abused in a way that only came from repeated reading from kids. Andy saw a copy of “The Polar Express” and grinned. The books up there had to be ones that Miranda had read the twins when they were smaller, but had out grown now, and Miranda couldn’t bear to part with the memories associated. Andy melted a little bit at that and wondered if she would do the same thing when her own little one came. She placed her hand on her stomach and sighed happily. She couldn’t wait to share her favorite books with her child. She hoped they loved reading as much as she did, but it would be ok if they didn’t, too.

The bottom couple shelves were miscellaneous books that didn’t fit in in the other catagoreies. Popular fiction, sci-fi, fantasy and the like that wasn’t technically considered literature, though Andy didn’t quite understand why sometimes. And then on the very bottom right above the floor was a bunch of books on tax law. Andy frowned at that. Why would Miranda need books on tax law. She knew the older woman had people to take care of that for her. So why…

Andy knelt down on the floor and pulled one of the books out. She opened it up and thumbed through it. It really was a book on tax law. Well then. Miranda was a big mystery and this would just be one more thing about her Andy didn’t understand. She went to put the book back but saw a flash of color behind the line of law books. She scrunched her face and pulled out a few more books just to get a look at whatever was back there. She reached her hand through and her fingers touched paper. Another book? Maybe it had just slipped back there.

She pulled out the book and then stared at it in disbelief for a few seconds. No way. There was no way that Miranda Priestly had a secret stash of romance novels hidden behind a bunch of books on tax law. That just was not how the world worked. And yet, here she was holding a book that clearly had a guy, shirtless with the most perfect washboard abs Andy had ever seen, holding a waif of a woman around the waist protectively. There wasn’t anything that the book could be other than a romance novel.

She quickly pulled out all the other books and found a veritable treasure trove of romance novels. She swallowed hard and felt her heart beat a little faster as she realized that not all of the novels were about straight couples. There were a few here and there that were clearly lesbian romances. Andy shook herself. What in the world was wrong with her?

Andy put all of the books back in their place and hurried back to the couch, her face still on fire from blushing so hard. She picked up Dracula and turned to the first page, but her eyes kept skimming over the first line over and over again. Her mind kept going back to the fact that not all of those stupid books were heterosexual romances. She swallowed hard after her brain went around in the same exact though process for the fifth time.

Miranda read romance novels. Ok, whatever, she thought, a lot of people did. It wasn’t really something she ever thought of Miranda doing, but Miranda was only human and everyone had their guilty pleasures. So that wasn’t what was bothering her, but then again she really had already known that.

Miranda read romance novels that were about lesbians. She felt her face heating a bit at that. There was where the problem was. Ok, what was wrong with that? So Miranda was open minded about love. That wasn’t exactly surprising. Miranda was a fairly liberal woman from what Andy knew about her. So why was she reacting like a veritable crazy person because she’d found tangible proof of that?

She put her book aside and stared out at the sunbeams once more. The dust motes didn’t hold her attention this time as her eyes went out of focus as she tried to sort through the mess of emotions and thoughts tumbling through her brain. Mirada was open minded about love. Obviously a fact considering the books, but then what if that wasn’t all the was opened minded about. What if instead of being open minded about two fictional people being in love, or other people in general being in love with someone of the same sex, what if Miranda herself could love a woman? Someone like her, maybe?

Her heart stopped at that. There it was. That was what was bothering her. And the only logical reason that it would bother her was that she was attracted to Miranda.

The thought hit her like a freight train and suddenly so much in her life made sense again. The warm feelings she’d been getting around Miranda, wanting to be closer to the woman, wanting to make her happy, everything made sense. She swallowed hard again. How could she have missed that for so long? Or was it really that long? She couldn’t really tell. There was no definitive point where she could point to and say that was when she’d concretely become attracted to Miranda romantically. Of course Miranda had always been a beautiful woman so she’d been at least a little sexually attracted to her forever, but she’d just brushed that off like she normally did with attractive women.

She put her face in her hands. Oh my god, she had totally been brushing off the fact that she was bisexual for her whole life, hadn’t she? And it had only taken getting pregnant and falling in love with her boss to realize it. Jesus, maybe she was the sweet down home girl everyone thought she was if that’s what it took.

But now that she had realized all of this, what in the world was she going to do about it? She was eleven weeks pregnant, just out of the hospital, just shy of not making ends meet, and well…her. Why in the world would Miranda ever be attracted to her of all people? So really the only thing to do about everything that she’d just finally figured out, was nothing. Because there was nothing else really to do. She sighed and curled up into a little ball on the couch. Of course she had to be attracted, have a crush on, whatever this was, on the one woman who was so far out of her league that Andy couldn’t even fathom the distance between them. Of course. She never did anything half assed.

Suddenly she was tired again, if not really physically then emotionally. The couch was comfortable enough, though, and if she really wanted she could take a nap right here. In the middle of Miranda’s study, basically surrounded by Miranda. She groaned. Then again, it wouldn’t really change if she moved. She was in Miranda’s house and would be for a week yet. What in the world had she gotten herself into?

But blessedly, before she could really think more about that subject, her eyelids started to weigh down and tiredness settled over her like a blanket. She really should get up and just go to her room for a nap if she was going to sleep, but her body had other plans. Her thoughts got fuzzier and fuzzier until she was sleep, snoring softly on the couch.

 

When she woke up it was obviously afternoon. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, stretching for a long moment. She wasn’t stiff at all. Trust Miranda to own the best couch for sleeping that Andy had even been on. She swung her legs so her feet rested on the floor. She wondered now if the extra sleeping was really all from almost miscarrying, or if it was that mixed with just pregnancy in general. She had slept more in the last two days than she had on some entire weeks while working at Runway.

Her stomach growled loudly. Jesus, she was hungry. Like eat a horse hungry. But she hadn’t done anything besides sleep since her last meal. Ugh, pregnancy was messing with everything. Which she had expected from all the research she’d done, but research and actually reality were two different things.

She stood and walked to the kitchen. Hopefully Roberta had just put the salad she made in the fridge when she had saw that Andy was asleep. She would devour the whole thing in about two seconds flat as hungry as she was.

Roberta wasn’t in the kitchen, but Andy opened the fridge and saw the plate sitting there waiting for her with the dressing right beside it. She grabbed everything out and set it on the island. She looked for a glass, not remembering where Roberta had gotten the last one from. She made a triumphant noise and she finally found the cabinet and pulled one out. She poured herself a glass of grape juice and sat down.

She was halfway through her salad when Roberta walked in. “Ah, nice to see you awake, honey. How’s the salad.”

“It’s really nice, thank you.”

“My pleasure. I changed the towels out in your bathroom so you have fresh ones, honey.”

“Oh awesome.” She smiled. She bit her lip for a second. She really wanted to ask Roberta if what she had heard the twins say earlier was true, but she didn’t want to put the woman on the spot. She supposed asking wouldn’t hurt. The woman could say no to her after all. She already had. “Um, was that room really Stephen’s once upon a time?”

The older woman’s face morphed into a dark expression. “Yes, and good riddance that he’s ain’t here anymore. Pig of a man, really. Miss Miranda did well in getting rid of him like she did.”

“How? I mean, I know they’re divorced, but that’s the last I heard of it.”

Roberta looked at her for a long moment. “She trusts you and that’s the only reason I’ll tell you this, but he tried to take her for all she was worth. She turned the favor on him, instead.”

Andy’s eyes widened. Well, that was Miranda after all. A smirk pulled at her face. “Good.”

“Mhm, that’s what I said, honey.” She whisked away the now empty plate in front of Andy.

“He put her through enough grief he deserved it.”

“Did he try to bring the twins into it?”

She nodded. “Before that I think she just wanted the divorce over as fast as possible. Then he called her a bad mother, and well, honey, the rest is history. I think he’ll be lucky to get a job in outer Saskatchewan.”

God almighty, the man had been dumber than she had thought. Even the most airheaded members of Runway knew that if you mentioned the twins in a derogatory manner you were deader than dead. TV Guide girl would look like a dream job. Andy loved that she was so protective of the twins, and just a little bit terrified. Then again, that was her normal reaction to Miranda, so it was par for the course.

“Wow, how did no one hear about that?”

“Miss Miranda said she’d rain down hellfire on anyone who said a word. The normal, honey, you know how she is.” She titled her head, looking back at Andy from the sink, wiping her hands on a dish towel before turning around fully. “But then again, maybe you don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, honey, you know. You’d be a fool not to, and I don’t think you’re a fool.” She started to walk out of the room. “The twins and Cara will be home soon. If you need anything I’ll be in the laundry room, honey. Don’t hesitate to shout.”

Andy stared after her for a long minute. What in the world did she mean exactly? Andy could get that Miranda treated her different than the rest of her employees at Runway, but that was because Miranda wanted to help her and maybe if she was lucky they were becoming friends. She still knew the terrifying side of Miranda. After all she’d worked for her for a year now. So really it didn’t make sense.

She shook her head and got up again before walking back to the study. When the twins got home she was sure that they would drag her into another room with a TV or maybe she could get them to show her around the house. She was sure Roberta could do that too, but she just felt better about the twins showing her around. She knew them and Miranda would be almost instantly diffused if she told her that the twins had said it was ok for her to be there in their quest to be good little hostesses.

She picked up the book she’d set aside earlier and sighed, sinking into the couch once more. It was still sunny in the room, though the little spots of sun where growing smaller now that the sun was starting to sink in the sky. She would love to have a study like this someday. Maybe if she ever became some prize winning journalist, that was about the only way she would be able to afford it, but it was a nice dream.

 

She read for a long while before the front door opened and the twins clomped through eagerly, with a lighter, third set of footsteps following through the door. Cara had to be with them. She heard Roberta call down to the girls that there were snacks already ready for them in the fridge. Cara called up her thanks and the girls ran into the kitchen, high pitched voices, echoing through the house. The house had been so peaceful without the two of them home, but right now it actually felt more like a home instead of just a house. Without the twins the townhouse was just a little too perfect to feel lived in.

Andy got up from the couch and stretched, yawning. At least she wasn’t really tired enough for another nap. She counted that as a win for the day. She made her way into the kitchen to see Cara leaning against the island and the twins crunching on carrots and celery.

“Andy!” Cassidy shouted, smiling.

“Hey, kiddos.” She smiled at both the girls as she leaned against the door frame. “How was school today?”

They both shrugged. “Same old, same old. Tomorrow though is the Christmas party, so everyone was really excited about that,” Cassidy said.

Caroline looked up from her carrots. “Science class was nice though. We dissected an earthworm. It was really interesting.”

“Ah, I remember doing that back in the day. You know, when dinosaurs walked the earth.” She grinned and twins rolled their eyes simultaneously.

“You aren’t that old, Andy,” Cassidy said, exasperated.

“Yeah, I mean, you don’t look a day over twenty-five…million years old.” Caroline’s lips turned up in a mirror image of her mother’s small smile. “And everyone knows the dinosaurs went extinct sixty-five million years ago when an asteroid hit the earth.”

Andy snorted. “Ah, yes, you’ve figured me out.”

Both the twins looked her over. “Are you feeling better, Andy?” Caroline asked, quietly.

“I think so. I’ve slept a lot today, so that’s probably good, and Roberta’s done a wonderful job feeding me. Hopefully I’ll be all back to normal soon.”

“Good,” Cassidy said. She crunched on the last of the carrots while Caroline took the last stick of celery. “We were worried.”

Andy pushed off the door and placed a hand on each of the girl’s shoulders and squeezed. “I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I’m fine right now as long as I don’t do anything strenuous.” She smiled at them. “I basically have a free excuse to lay around and read and watch movies all day.”

The twins lit up at the word movies. “Do you wanna watch a movie with us?”

Andy glanced at Cara, who looked happy at the prospect of someone else watching the twins for a little bit. “Sure, but only after you guys finish your homework. I don’t want your mom to come after me if it’s not done.”

The twins scrunched their faces but nodded. “Ok,” Cassidy said, slipping off her stool. “Come on Caro, let’s go. I really want to watch Into the Woods.” They ran from the room and Cara sighed before following them.

Andy smiled and went back to her place on the study couch. She was just starting to get to her favorite part. Lucy had started to sleep walk and was falling progressively more ill, while Dr. Seward, Mina, and Van Helsing all rushed to figure out what was wrong with her. She got another few chapters into the story before she heard feet clomping down the stairs once more.

She closed her book and stretched again. A second later the twins were turning the corner at a breakneck speed. Andy was pretty sure that they’d at least slow down a little if their mom was there, but as long as they weren’t injured she supposed all was well.

“Andy! We’re done with our homework. You wanna watch a movie now?” Cassidy asked, hopping up and down a bit.

Andy stood. “Sure.”

Cassidy rocketed off. “Yes!” she shouted back over her shoulder.

Caroline waited for Andy with a small smile on her face. She led Andy up the stairs and to a room on the other end of the second floor. Andy whistled at the sheer amount of tech in the room. Hot damn, she was sure her apartment and all the stuff in it was probably worth less than just the contents of this room alone.

Cassidy was already on the floor, playing around with one of the DVD players and clicking through a menu with a remote. Caroline plopped down to one side of the couch and looked at Andy hopefully while she patted the place beside her. Andy smiled at her before walking over and sitting in the middle of the couch. A second later Cassidy threw herself into the vacant seat on the other side of Andy.

“Everyone good?”

Caroline and Andy nodded.

“Awesome.” Cassidy pressed the play button and threw the remote onto the side table. 

The movie started to play and Andy almost laughed as the people on screen started to sing. Who would’ve guessed that the twins were fond of musicals. The movie continued on and Andy found that she actually liked the plot. It was nice, intertwining a few different fairytales. She’d heard of Into the Woods as a Broadway play, but she hadn’t ever really looked into it. She’d have to look up that version later. She had nothing else to do all week, anyway.

Throughout the film the twins kept managing to get closer and closer. Andy was totally onto them, but she said nothing. She just lifted her arms when they got close enough and drew them into her side. Neither twin said anything about it, but continued to watch the movie. Andy was so warm surrounded by twin mini-furnaces. She felt her eyes grow heavy even as she fought to stay awake. She really did want to see what was going on. But her body had other plans and her head slumped back against the couch and she dozed off.

 

She awoke to the front door opening. She blinked her eyes open and looked around, a little confused. Right she was in the TV room. She looked down. The twins were still pressed into her side, but another movie she didn’t recognize was playing. Into the Woods must have ended, but the twins had kept on watching movies cuddled into her side. She smiled down at them.

“What’s this movie?” She asked.

Cassidy looked up at her. “Morning sleepyhead. It’s Coco Before Chanel. It’s one of Mom’s favorites.”

Andy laughed. “Of course it is.”

The sound of heels coming up the stairs stopped their conversation. The twins’ heads popped over the edge of the couch, waiting for their mother to appear in the doorway. Sure enough a minute later Miranda was standing there, looking perfect as always, even at the end of a long workday.

“Bobbseys,” she said warmly and opened her arms.

The twins disentangled themselves from Andy and shot off to hug Miranda. Andy stood up and stretched her stiff muscles. She wondered just how long she’d been sitting on the couch asleep.

Miranda looked up and met Andy’s eyes. “Girls, you haven’t been bothering Andrea, have you?”

Andy walked forward towards the little family. “They weren’t bothering me at all. They were entertaining me. Until I fell asleep on them, anyway. I woke up a minute ago when you walked in the front door.” She yawned. “It was a nice nap. These two make good space heaters.” She reached forward and ruffled the hair on both of the twins’ heads.

Miranda smiled down at the girls. “Yes, they do.” She disengaged from them. “Go on and wash up for dinner, girls. We’ll be down in a minute and then we can all eat.”

“Awesome,” Cassidy said as both of them continued down the hall and into their rooms.

Miranda looked back at Andy. “How are you feeling, Andrea?”

“Better, a lot better, then again I should. I slept a lot.”

“Good, that was what the doctor wanted you to do, rest.”

Andy nodded. “Yeah, well, I’m beginning to feel like I have narcolepsy.”

Miranda scoffed. “I believe that’s one problem you don’t actually have. But nonetheless, I understand your meaning. There were periods in my pregnancy with the girls where I’d fall asleep during important meetings. Only for a minute at a time, but still, it was bothersome.”

Andy wondered just how many head rolled at those meetings to make up for the fact that Miranda had fallen asleep and probably felt the need to compensate. Probably a lot. She held in a laugh. Not that meetings with the board of directors or the accounting side of the magazine didn’t deserve to have a few heads rolling anyway. They were all such…ugh, Andy didn’t even have a word for them. She always wanted to strangle them a bit when Miranda had her tag along to take notes. If they had been Runway creative team meetings, well, those people usually knew how to navigate Miranda being difficult enough to at least not get fired.

“Did Roberta prove satisfactory today?” Miranda asked after a pause.

“Oh yeah, of course, she was wonderful. Her food is amazing.” That and she had given Andy a great bit of insight into the woman she might be falling for. Yeah, she was great all right.

Miranda nodded. “Good. I find her food satisfactory as well.”

High praise from Miranda. Andy sent a small smile her way.

“And now we need to eat the dinner she left us. Come along, Andrea.” Miranda turned and walked down the hall.

Andy followed obediently as always. Just as they hit the bottom of the stairs the twins started down the stairs, clattering like a herd of elephants. Miranda just shook her head with a fondly exasperated look and continued on into the dining room.

“Girls, set the table if you would.”

Andy stood back for a minute. She had been in the Priestly household for all of twenty-four hours and yet now as the twins bustled past her into the kitchen to get dinner plates and silverware, this felt more like home than her apartment had the entire time she’d been living in New York. Even when Nate and her had been good together before Runway was ever a blip on the map, it hadn’t felt like this. Andy hadn’t felt as warm and safe as she did now. She had felt nice, yeah, but this was different in a way she couldn’t quite define just yet. It probably had to do with her budding feelings for Miranda, but then again the night before, before she had ever really put two and two together she had felt the same way. Maybe it was just Miranda, though she was sure her coworkers would scoff at the thought of ever feeling safe around Miranda, she did.

She looked up and met Miranda’s eyes as she came out of the kitchen juggling a few dishes like some sort of pro waitress. They held each other’s gaze for a few moments longer than what was probably polite, but there was no awkwardness between them. She smiled, bright as normal and pushed off the doorway. She took a few of the dishes from Miranda and set them on the table within easy reach of each of the chairs.

“Thank you, Andrea,” Miranda said, setting down the rest of the dishes with ease.

“Of course, any time.” And Andy wasn’t sure she’d ever said anything truer in her life.

The twins barreled back into the room with plates and the meal continued and for that time Andy felt like a true part of a family for the first time since she’d left for college years ago. She’d forgotten how nice it felt and as she looked around the table, she thought that maybe it felt even better here than it had back in Cincinnati and she was ok with that.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Miranda sighed as she walked into the townhouse much later than she would have liked. So many things had gone wrong all in one day. After so long she wondered if she should actually be surprised by the sheer amount of things that could go belly up in an hour’s time. She hung her coat up and listened for the sounds of the girls, but heard none. It was ten o’clock. They probably were in bed already if they were behaving. She heaved another heavy sigh. Another day they had gone without seeing their mother for more than a few minutes at the start of the day.

Her hand reached up and massaged the bridge of her nose. She truly did hate days like this. She felt as if she was a failing mother, the one that all the tabloids painted her to be alongside her image as the dragon lady, because of course someone like that couldn’t love her children.

She would have to pull an assistant from one of the other departments. Things had piled up even more because Emily was trying to do the job of two people, more like three if Miranda was being honest. Andrea did an extraordinary amount of things in the time she was in the office. In the business world she would go far, but then again, since the girl did not want that, her increased productivity would serve her well anywhere, really. Miranda only wished that she could keep the girl by her side indefinitely.

Miranda hummed to herself. In a way she was keeping Andrea with her, if not at work, then in her personal life. She would be there every step of the way for this baby that Andrea was carrying. What’s more she wanted to be more than anything in the world, besides being there for her girls. Perhaps in a way, Andrea was one of her girls.

The thought stopped Miranda. Eventually she would have to think about the mounting evidence, the significant conversations with Martha, the way she acted completely different around the girl, the way she’d brought Andrea into her own home. But she couldn’t quite think of those things yet, even in the quiet of her own home, three days after Andrea had gotten out of the hospital. This was a more suitable locations for such thoughts, but no. Andrea was still vulnerable and her thoughts of this manner would not help her recovery.

Speaking of Andrea, however, she wondered where the other woman was. She heard no sounds of a person stirring in the house and reasoned that Andrea had probably gone to bed as well. She did need as much sleep as possible in order to recover from her ordeal and to keep the baby healthy.

Miranda slipped off her heels, picking them up and padding up the stairs. She would say goodnight to the twins and check in on Andrea just to make sure the other woman was comfortable before she went and worked on the book for the night. She almost groaned at the amount of work that she would face when she sat down, but managed to hold the sound in. There was no use whining. She would get the work done as she always did and that was that.

She slipped into Caroline’s room and brushed the hair from her forehead before leaning down and kissing the space she cleared gently. Caroline’s eyes blinked open for just a moment and she smiled.

“Mommy,” she said still mostly asleep.

“Bobbsey, I’m sorry I missed dinner.”

“It’s ‘kay you’re here now.”

Miranda smiled as her heart broke just a little inside her chest. “Goodnight, darling. I love you.”

“Love you too.” Caroline settled back into her bed and was asleep a second later.

Miranda made her way across the hall and repeated the same process with Cassidy, but her older daughter slept like a rock and did not wake. She smiled down at the girl with a bittersweet smile and exited the room a second later. They were growing up so fast. Everyone had said they would, but Miranda had thought those platitudes were ridiculous, but the instant she’d held the girls in her arms, and every moment since, she had learned how true the saying was.

She sighed and shook her head, walking down the hall towards Andrea’s room. She wondered if the other woman would find the same thing was true for her baby. Probably. She didn’t know how anyone could escape it. That one day they were a baby and then you blinked and your child was a toddler and then suddenly they were in school and on their way to being an adult before you were ever ready.

Miranda opened the door to Andrea’s room, but even in the gloom she could tell that no one was in the woman’s bed. She frowned. Where in the world could she be? She still hadn’t heard any movement. Perhaps she had fallen asleep somewhere else in the middle of something. One of the entertainment rooms, maybe.

She went off and searched the second floor, still unable to find the woman. Miranda knew she shouldn’t be getting worried just yet, it was a large house after all with a  great many rooms to look through, but yet a little ball of anxiety was at the back of her mind and only her iron will was keeping it at bay. Where in the world was she?

Miranda went downstairs, covering the den, the visitor’s living room quickly. There were no signs of disturbance there. The kitchen, dining room, and laundry room were out. There was no place to sleep there. The only place she hadn’t checked on this floor was her study. She shrugged and went to check. She might as well be thorough before she climbed to the third floor and looked around.

She froze in the doorway to her study, her heart beating loudly in her ears. Andrea was laying on the couch, with a throw draped over her, fast asleep, hair splayed around her like a dark halo. Miranda felt herself melting at the sight in front of her. Andrea was here, in the one space in the house that was completely and wholly Miranda’s, comfortable and at ease, sleeping soundly in a room that would put a great many others on edge.

Miranda felt herself walking forward without really realizing it. She sank down beside Andrea, brushing a piece of hair from the woman’s face carefully. She debated whether to wake the other woman. A couch was really no place for a pregnant woman to sleep. But something stilled her hand from moving to Andrea’s shoulder and waking her.

She sat back, curling her feet under her and sitting on top of them. She kneeled like that for a long moment, long enough for her feet to go to sleep, and still she didn’t move. All those feelings that she had locked behind the wall to deal with later, they were banging against the barrier now, wanting to be set free. Miranda was terrified and yet not. Andrea was…she was as safe as she was frightening. Something about that Midwestern wholesome attitude made her that way. It pried Miranda open in ways she’d never willingly reveal otherwise, and yet at the same time made her feel safe when she did open up. The woman in front of her was such a set of contradictions that Miranda wasn’t quite sure what to do.

Which was a lie. She knew what she wanted to do at least. Miranda closed her eyes and looked heavenward, letting the quiet shifting sounds of her home wash over her. What she wanted was to fall in love with this woman in front of her.

A gasp left her mouth as she finally admitted it to herself. A weight lifted off her shoulders at the same time as another one replaced it. And yet she still managed to feel lighter.

She didn’t just want to fall in love, she already had. Her fist clenched and she stood slowly, waiting for feeling to come back into her feet before moving once again, quietly out of the room. She grabbed her cell phone up from where she’d thrown it earlier and dialed the first person she could think of.

Martha answered on the second ring. “It’s a little late even for you to be calling, Miranda. Is something wrong?”

Miranda froze for a long moment. She couldn’t quite make her mouth form the words. Which was ridiculous. She hadn’t gotten to her place in Runway by beating around the bush. Martha, bless her, let Miranda speak in her own time.

“Martha, I think…” she took a deep breath and looked over her shoulder. Andrea wasn’t there. She was still asleep. She was just coming to grips with this herself, Andrea would have to know at some point, or did she? The point was that while she was dealing with this on her own Andrea shouldn’t know until Miranda herself was sure what she wanted to do.

“I’m in love with Andrea,” Miranda finally said, her voice quiet, with none of the regular steel.

“Glad to see you finally put that together, sweetie,” Martha said, but her voice wasn’t unkind. “It’s sort of been obvious for a little while now.”

“Is it really?” Miranda bit her lip but then straightened up immediately. No, she was not going to be like this, even now. It wasn’t who she was.

“To me, but I’ve known you forever and a day. And Nina thought so when I was explaining how you were acting. But I’m sure everyone else, Andy included, won’t see it. They all probably think you’re just acting like your normal mercurial self. Though, Andy would be the closest one to figuring it out. She knows that you aren’t the Dragon all the time.” Martha hummed. “That’ll have to develop further before I can get a fix on the situation. Or asking Nina, she’s the psychologist after all.”

Miranda blew out a breath. “The idiots at Runway and Elias-Clarke can think what they want so long as it doesn’t hurt Andrea. I can handle whatever they throw my way.”

Martha laughed softly. “That we know. What, you’ve still got a couple things in that folder you keep against Irv?”

“More than a couple now. A private investigator is sometimes a very good investment.”

“Cheating on his wife?”

“Mmm, with many women and an odd man. There are drugs involved as well, apparently. He’s not nearly as careful as he thinks he is.” Miranda smiled that sharp, predator’s smile she favored when going in for the kill. “Though I think I’ll pull out some of the lighter material first. We wouldn’t want to give away the trump card just yet.”

“You’re damn scary, you know that?”

Miranda started to pace through the first floor, still staying far away from the study. “I’m aware.”

There was a pause in the conversation. Miranda could practically feel that Martha wanted to ask a question. She sank down on one of the stools in the kitchen in preparation. Martha never asked easy questions, which sometimes was a great help, but other times not so much.

“Miranda do you know what you’re going to do about it?” Martha finally asked.

And of course Martha would ask the one question that Miranda didn’t have the answer to. The woman knew her far too well.

“Martha, I just put together that I’m in love with the woman. I haven’t much thought of anything else. I called you before I could think of anything else.”

“Which means you would have sat in your foyer panicking if you hadn’t called.”

Miranda opened her mouth to deny the claim but closed it. She didn’t know that Martha was wrong, really.

“Ok, answer me this, whatever comes to mind first, no thinking about it because we both know how you are with overthinking everything in your life. What do you _want_ to do? In a perfect world where you could have everything you wanted, what would you want to do with Andy?”

Miranda froze for a minute, her brain running on so many different tracks at once that eve for her, she couldn’t get a grip on a single thought.

“I told you no thinking, now come out with it.”

“I would want…I think I would want to spend the rest of my life with her? She’s not…there’s something about her. She doesn’t—”

“She doesn’t treat you like some goddess or a set of money bags or a beautiful face. She treats you like a person.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s an accurate summation of everything.”

“Miranda, accurate doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’ve seen the girl around you. You’re her sun and moon, not her whole world, because god knows that girl has got goals, but you’re such a great part of her life that she would be lost without you. And it’s the same way with you.”

Miranda sucked in a breath. “You’re right.”

“Damn right I am. We both know I’m right more than I’m wrong, especially when it comes to you.”

Her mind spun again. She knew what she wanted in a perfect world, but this world was far from perfect. There were so many things that could go wrong. The press, her girls, the twenty year age gap between them, the fact that Andrea was pregnant, her job, Andrea’s job, Andrea’s dreams. There were so many things, stacking themselves on top of Miranda’s shoulders weighing her down once more. How in the world could she have thought that admitting these feelings was a good thing for her to do? She should have just kept herself in the dark. The world where she locked her emotions away hurt so much less.

“Now, now, don’t make me come over there. I can here you panicking ten blocks away. Miranda, this world is messed up, yes, and it’s nowhere near perfect all around, but there’s nothing that says that you can’t make a little piece of it perfect. You have to fight to make it that way, but you’re the fiercest fighter I know when you truly want something. And don’t tell me you wanted your husbands, especially the last one, fuck him. You started in the worst part of the East End, and we both know how bad it is there, and now you’re a multimillionaire who heads the largest fashion empire in the world. All because you had a dream that you fought tooth and nail to get. Why can’t Andy be the same? You’re safe enough at Runway you don’t have to fight for that anymore, you just have to maintain the status quo like always. Why can’t you divert some of that effort into going for the girl?”

“Martha I—”

“Nope, whatever it is that’s about to come out of your mouth if it’s not I’ll think about it, I don’t want to hear it. Go to sleep, Miranda. Forget about the Book until the morning, and sleep on it.”

“There’s one problem with your formula of getting me to overcome my own personal issues with something of this magnitude.” Miranda looked back over her shoulder towards where the study was. “What if she doesn’t feel the same way about me? The girl is pregnant. She obviously likes men. What if she just thinks it’s a very close friendship? If that’s all this is to her…I don’t want to lose it.”

“Miranda, did you forget the part of the conversation where I told you that you were her sun and moon? You are my best friend and you aren’t my sun and moon, that’s Nina, and we both know it. You’re important to me, most assuredly, but you’re the stars in this probably over drawn out metaphor. Important and you’d be a little lost without them, but not devastated. The world wouldn’t be the same without the sun and moon, and neither would you.”

Miranda leaned down, feeling the granite countertop cool her cheek. It grounded her just the slightest bit. “And you’re sure?”

“I’d stake my life on it.”

“Ok.” And that was all that Miranda had to say. Suddenly she was even more tired than she’d been walking in the door. She felt as if the flight of stair between her room and the kitchen were too much.

“Sleep on it, call me in the morning.”

“Are you going to tell me to take aspirin too just to make the cliché complete?” Miranda sat up with just the ghost of a smirk on her face.

“Only if you’ve given your fool self a headache. Goodnight, Miranda.”

“Goodnight, Martha…thank you.”

“That’s what friends are for.” The phone call ended and Miranda stared around the kitchen for a few more minutes before getting up. Andrea shouldn’t spend the whole night on the couch. If there was anything she truly knew at that point, it was that. And so she walked into the study once more.

She clenched her fists as the same warm feelings assaulted her. There was no going back now. Now that she had let these feeling about Andrea out, she wasn’t sure she could put them back into the dark confined space they’d been in before. She was made out of iron, but those feelings felt as if they were made out of steel. And iron, no matter how strong it was, would eventually bend to the might of steel. She would be defeated if she tried. And she never entered into a fight she knew she couldn’t win.

Miranda walked forward and knelt down beside Andrea again. This time her hand obeyed her will and reached out. She gripped Andrea’s shoulder gently and shook.

“Andrea, a couch is no place for a pregnant woman to be sleeping,” she said voice low, but not quite soothing, there was a chastisement in there somewhere.

“Mmm, five more minutes, M’rnda,” Andrea mumbled.

“You can go right back to sleep as soon as you climb up the stairs to your room where there’s a real bed with support for you to sleep on.”

“That’s really far away.” Andrea’s eyes blinked open this time, though. “And you’re couch is great, better than my bed at home by miles.”

Miranda frowned at that, mind immediately going to plans to replace Andrea’s bed before she went home. Home. Miranda got the distinct impression that she didn’t want the girl to go home, but she pushed that aside for now.

“Yes, but the point still stands that it is not an actual bed.”

Andrea sat up slowly. “Fine, I suppose that you’re right. What happened at Runway today that made you so late?”

“Everything went wrong. It was as normal.”

The younger woman smiled. “And I bet being down an assistant didn’t help at all.”

Miranda tilted her head. “I can’t say that it did. Emily is adequate, but she is no you.”

Andrea’s smile was soft. “Thanks.” She laughed quietly. “I literally would have killed to hear you say that at the beginning of my tenure. Like, maybe multiple people.”

Miranda smirked. “You wanted Nigel’s fabled gold star.”

Pale cheeks turned a lovely rose. “He told you about that conversation?”

“He did, but I knew of it before then. I know all that goes on in Runway, Andrea. Many people forget that.” She cocked an eyebrow.

“That’s a bit scary. No one was there but me and Nigel. How did you know before he told you?”

“You are the first one he’s given that speech to in a kind manner, but not the first one he’s given that speech, or some derivative thereof, to in the history of Runway. The sparkle of working for the Queen of Fashion loses its drawl when they aren’t recognized for being spectacular, even for the run of the mill clackers as you call them.”

Andrea nodded slowly. “Oh, I see, so someone walked past and saw us and you figured out what the conversation was about like that?”

“I also read lips, Andrea.” Miranda stood and held out her hand. “But both of us need rest, come along.”

“No way! You were the one who walked by. I thought you had gone for the night.” Andrea took her hand and pulled herself up with a sigh.

“I’m full of surprises, or has working for me for over a year not impressed this upon you?” Miranda led them up the stairs and towards Andrea’s room.

“I mean it has, but lip reading and appearing out of nowhere are new ones even for me. I’m allowed to be surprised.”

Miranda smiled over her shoulder at the woman. “I suppose you are.”

“No, I am. Because I get the feeling, Miranda, that I only know the tip of the iceberg about you.” She paused for a second. “But I do want to know more, if you’ll let me.”

Miranda stopped outside of Andrea’s door. She hesitated for just a second before turning around. “I believe you know me better than anyone I’ve met in years does.”

“And that’s an achievement, I know, but I still want to know more. I can see the woman under the legend, but it’s not a complete picture now. I think the only one who has the complete picture is you and maybe Martha. Nigel doesn’t, but he comes closer.” Andrea looked away and scuffed her socked feet along the floor. “I want to be one of those people that sees you for you, not just the beginnings of the wonderful woman, all of her.”

Miranda breathed in deeply. She wasn’t sure that she could handle all of this so soon after admitting to herself that she did indeed have feelings. But she did have to handle it. She felt like laughing. That was the way with many things she supposed.

“No one cares for the woman underneath the mask.”

Andrea took a tiny step closer to Miranda, still gripping her hand. “I do, I know Martha does, Nigel does as much as you let him, the girls definitely do. The people you say don’t care about the woman underneath are the ones who only wanted the legend. They didn’t deserve you, any of you, woman or Fashion Queen.”

Miranda laughed, but it wasn’t happy. “You don’t deserve to put up with me, Andrea. It’s as I said at the beginning, you are young and full of hope for the world and I am not. The fastest way to become cynical is to be subjected to cynicism from all sides. That’s what would happen.”

“I don’t believe that Miranda. A cynic wouldn’t take her second assistant under her wing and help her out. They would shrug and say that’s the way of the world. You say you’re cynical, and maybe you are in business, that would be the place really to be cynical, but in life…I don’t think you are. There’s something soft there, something that few people see, mostly the girls. That’s who you really are, Miranda. Sure you’re also the bitchy fashion queen, closed off from the world, but those are persona you’ve gained over the years. We all have them, it just takes someone special to see through them every now and again.”

“And you, Andrea, do you have any of these persona?” Miranda looked the girl over carefully.

“You tell me.” Andrea looked back with soft, but determined eyes.

Miranda tilted her head. “You do, but they are very…subtle.”

A smile sparked in the woman’s eyes. “Then you’re on your way to knowing me wholly too. Would you be less resistant if this was a give and take process?”

“Why are you so adamant about this, Andrea?”

“Because I like you, Miranda, and I want you in my life and I would be a terrible, stupid person not to get to know you better because you’re just this amazing person, and yet no one sees it.”

“And if I said this was your hopefulness clouding your eyes?”

“I wouldn’t believe you. I’m a journalist, remember, I can sense where a story is.” She smiled, small and fragile, but it made Miranda’s heart flutter in the most odd way.

“I suppose you can.” Miranda sighed. “I won’t say that a give and take process will guarantee that everything will work out, but I think that would be a place to start, if you really want to, Andrea.”

“I do.”

Miranda nodded and squeezed Andrea’s hand once before letting go. “Well then, it is late and some of us need to rest for two. I will see you in the morning.”

“Goodnight, Miranda.” Andrea’s smile was brighter this time. “Sleep well.”

“You as well.”

Miranda turned and walked back to her bedroom, heart beating a bit faster than it maybe should.


	13. Chapter 13

Andy’s alarm went off and she groaned. She had to get up. She had an appointment today with Dr. Patel to make sure that everything was still ok with the baby despite the miscarriage scare. The ER had said they were fine, but Dr. Patel would know more about it. She had been on pins and needles for most of the week waiting. Miranda had pulled her normal strings, but even with that she’d only been able to get an appointment four days out.

She sighed and sat up. It was probably for the best. It had given her time to rest up and recover and now what Dr. Patel did see would be more accurate to the rest of the pregnancy. She rubbed her hands over her face. She was going to have to go in every two weeks now instead of monthly. It was going to be a nightmare logistically being Miranda’s assistant and having to have time off that frequently during the work day. Emily would kill her for certain. But she would put up with it because she wanted this child to be safe and healthy more than she wanted anything else. She put her hand on her stomach and sighed.

At least Miranda would understand, so there wasn’t that wall to get over. She glanced over at her clock, a couple minutes past ten. She would be here soon to pick Andy up to take her to the doctor. She wondered if Miranda would want to come to every visit now that they were going to be so frequent. She hoped so at the same time that she didn’t. She didn’t want Miranda getting behind on anything on her account.

Miranda. She had told the woman that she wanted to get to know her better. She scrunched her eyes shut. It was true, so very true, but she must have still been half asleep to say it so bluntly. That conversation had been so…it wasn’t quite intense, but it had been very laden with meaning. She groaned. What did Miranda really think about last night? She would kill to know, but that wasn’t exactly going to happen. The best she was going to get was if Miranda actually went along with her idea of getting to know each other more, then she didn’t absolutely hate it. That would be something at least.

She pushed herself out of bed. Why in the world was she such a pushy person sometimes? She had just realized that she had feelings for Miranda and now she was all about getting to know the woman better. Well, she had been before, too, but she had been much more subtle about it. Wasn’t it a good skill in a reporter to know when to be subtle and when to go in like a sledgehammer? Had she lost that in the year she’d been working for Runway?

Andy shook herself. She needed to stop thinking about this because it wasn’t going to get her anywhere right now. She had the baby to think about and that was more important than her own slight panic over her sleep fogged ramblings. At least last night she’d fallen right to sleep after Miranda had left her for the night so she was well rested and ready to face the day.

She got ready quickly, putting on some loose clothing that would be easy to slip on and off, thankful that she did have designer casual clothes. She didn’t want Miranda to look bad by being with her either, even if she was pregnant. They did make designer maternal wear, and she was well aware of that considering she did actually have some courtesy of Miranda, though it was still too loose yet to really wear. Warmth rose within her as she remembered the night they’d spent picking out things that would look good on her. That had been a very good night.

Andy entered the bathroom and frowned at her reflection. The haggardness that had lined her face right after getting out of the hospital was gone, but she still wasn’t looking her best. Nor did she really have time to do much about it. Miranda would be here soon, and as much as she wanted to look good for Miranda, she didn’t want to keep the other woman waiting more. So she ran a brush through her hair, applied some concealer and foundation, and was back out of the bathroom five minutes later.

She walked out of her room just as Roberta crested the top of the stairs. “Ah, there you are, honey. I was just coming to make sure you were up. Miss Miranda called to say she was on her way. She says you can’t have breakfast before this appointment?”

Andy nodded. “They’re running some bloodwork that requires fasting.”

“Well then, I’ll make sure to have something ready for you when you get back. If Miss Miranda takes you out to lunch, left overs keep.” She smiled kindly.

“Thanks, Roberta.”

“Of course, honey, I like to keep myself useful.” She walked up to Andy and squeezed her shoulders. “And everything at this appointment is going to go just fine, you trust me. I know these things.”

“I really, really hope so.” Her hand rested on her stomach, making small circles on the fabric of her t-shirt.

“You’re a strong girl, and I know your baby is too.” Roberta smiled once more before stepping back. “But Miss Miranda will be here soon, so you best finish getting ready.”

Andy nodded and they both walked down the stairs to the ground floor. She slipped on her shoes and grabbed her coat. December really had decided to set in in the last few days. The temperature had dropped significantly below freezing and it was snowing every now and again.

 Then again, it was to be expected, she supposed. Christmas was only four days away. The girls last day of school was tomorrow and she knew they would try to coerce her into helping them decorate, not that Andy minded in the slightest. She’d always loved Christmas the best. She frowned. But Christmas this year was going to suck. She didn’t have the money to fly home, and her week with Miranda would be up on the twenty-third. She’d get to go home to an empty apartment for Christmas Eve.

She shook herself. There was no need to feel sorry for herself.  She would miss being in such a lively house, but as much as she liked it, this wasn’t where she belonged. This was Miranda’s family and it wasn’t hers.

But she wondered if someday it might be hers too.

She huffed out a breath. Miranda was being a very good friend, nothing more. But friends could be your family too. She’d had that with Doug and Lilly before the whole Nate thing. And Miranda said she would be around for the long haul with this child. What was stopping them from forming an impromptu family like that?

The fact that she wanted it to be more than that, probably. But she would settle for what she could get, and she knew she would, if only in this one case. She didn’t settle, or at least she didn’t think she did, but Miranda…Miranda would be an exception. She was already an exception for every other rule, why not Andy’s rules as well.

She ran her hands through her hair and then cursed herself. She’d probably just messed up any order it had once had, but she was frustrated. She was too much in her head this morning. Maybe it was to avoid thinking about the appointment, or maybe it was because she was a glutton for punishment. Either worked really.

The sound of a car slowing down outside caught Andy’s attention. She walked forward and peaked out one of the windows to see the Mercedes sitting by the curb, waiting. A second later Andy’s cell phone buzzed with a text from Miranda tell her that she was here. Andy smiled and slipped on her coat before emerging into the cold December air.

She was glad that the town car was already nice and toasty when she slid in. Andy took a deep breath of warm air and sighed. She hadn’t realized it had gotten quite that cold, but then again she’d been inside for the last four days, so she supposed that made sense.

She turned towards Miranda. “Good morning,” she said, smiling, but she could feel it wasn’t nearly as bright as normal.

Miranda’s eyes looked over Andy’s face intently behind Prada sunglasses. “Yes, good morning. Are you feeling all right today?”

Andy shrugged. “Just nervous, I guess.”

Miranda reached out and patted Andy’s hand. “It will—well, I believe it will be alright, Andrea.”

“Thanks. Roberta said basically the same thing a few minutes ago.”

Miranda hummed and looked out the window. “She is a good woman, always has been.”

“Yeah.”

They fell into a slightly awkward silence and Andy didn’t know what in the world had caused it. Normally when they didn’t talk in the car it was comfortable, normal, but today it wasn’t. Andy frowned. Was it because of last night?  Was Miranda being awkward because of what Andy had said? Oh if that was true she was going to slap herself upside the head. Of course she wouldn’t actually get the real reason out of Miranda ever. She could lock herself up tighter than Fort Knox.

Andy rubbed at her forehead. She was getting a headache from worrying herself like this. Which probably wasn’t good for the baby to stress herself out so much. She really needed to calm down, but she wasn’t sure how at that moment, trapped in a car with Miranda rolling through Manhattan to an appointment which would tell her if her child was really ok. It wasn’t exactly a stress free situation.

“Andrea, are you truly alright?” Miranda said, looking back over at her, sliding her sunglasses off and setting them on top of her head so she could really look at Andy.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just a little headache, nothing bad.” Andy shrugged.

“Perhaps you should tell Dr. Patel about it.”

Andy almost snorted, but managed to hold it in. Yes, tell her OB that she was worried because she thought she had pushed the one friend she had in her life away because she was probably in love with her. While said woman was in the room with her. Because that would go over so well.

“It’s not even that bad, Miranda. Everyone gets headaches every now and again.”

Miranda’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, but not everyone was in the hospital less than a week ago.”

And as odd as it was, Miranda’s Ice Queen persona was almost a comforting.

“If it will make you feel better, I’ll tell her about it, but really I think it’s nothing, Miranda. It’s probably just because I’m worried about the appointment.” And several other things, but that was beside the point.

“See that you do.” Miranda looked away again, but didn’t put her sunglasses back on. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you or your child, Andrea. Not if I can prevent it in some way.”

Andy’s heart melted a little bit in that instant. “Ok. I—thank you for being so concerned, Miranda. It really does mean a lot.”

Miranda waved off the thanks. “I said I would be here for you, Andrea, and I intend to stick to my word, that includes being concerned with your wellbeing.”

“Of course.” Andy smiled while her insides churned. She shouldn’t have read anything into it, but she had, and now she was slightly disappointed. She knew she shouldn’t be, but, well, she was anyway. Miranda being concerned because she was sticking to her word wasn’t what Andy wanted. She wanted Miranda to be concerned because she truly and deeply cared, not that the two had to be mutually exclusive, but she felt like they were.

Ugh, she really had to pull herself together. Maybe it was just the pregnancy hormones kicking in hard today that was making her like this. Then again, love had a way of messing with your head even if you didn’t want it to and were a very self-assured person beforehand. But that was beside the point here. She wouldn’t act like a love sick puppy who got kicked every time the person they were in love with said something even slightly wrong. That wasn’t her.

Roy stopped the car outside of Dr. Patel’s office building. Miranda was out of the car and opening Andy’s door for her before she could even blink. She offered a hand to Andy. Andy took it with a real smile and pulled herself up.

“You know, I’m not made of glass,” Andy said as the two of them walked inside.

“I am aware, but you should get used to the help now. In a few months the only way you’ll be getting up is if someone helps you or with a great lot of rocking.” Miranda’s face scrunched. “That was my least favorite part of pregnancy, unable to get up without help, waddling around like some sort of bowling ball. Nothing fit and that was before there was really any market for fashionable maternity clothing. It was a nightmare, Andrea. Do you realize the lengths I had to go just to find something decent?” Miranda went on as if it was the end of the world.

Andy tried her best not to snicker. Miranda without fashionable clothing, who could imagine? But still.

“No, not really. I remember that a certain fashion Queen just sort of handed me my maternity clothing, so there wasn’t really much effort there on my part.”

“Yes, well, be glad that I have such stock to pull from now. The nineties were atrocious for more than one reason, really. Grunge.” Miranda shivered just slightly as they walked onto the elevator together.

“I was more of an overalls girl.”

Miranda looked pained. “Oh, of course you were, Andrea. And jean jackets, I presume?”

“Yup, I have a bunch of patches sewn on it too. It was middle school, what can I say? I finally got rid of that thing in high school.”

“And you traded it for horrible shoes and skirts that looked like wall paper from the seventies,” Miranda deadpanned.

“Oh no, those came later. There was a year or two of rhinestones and pink before I graduated to the sort of style you first saw me with. Turtleneck striped sweaters are comfy if nothing else.”

By this point Miranda was practically seizing beside her. “Andrea, why?”

“Like you said, it was the nineties. And the early two thousands, but everyone knows the nineties sort of dragged out into the early two thousands. I think we’ve finally escaped though.”

“Thank god.” Miranda hurried off the elevator as if it carried the stench of distressed jeans and combat boots.

“Surely Runway had to have done shoots on some of those styles,” Andy said, catching up with Miranda.

“Oh, we did, but that does not mean that I did not have every minute of it.”

Andy snorted at that. “Ok, there had to be something that you liked out of that time period.”

Miranda sniffed and looked away, stopping right outside of Dr. Patel’s office door. “Fine, perhaps a well done cowl neckline caught my attention once or twice. But there is a reason I enjoy wearing styles that never go out of fashion, Andrea. I am one for the classics. And I know that your style tends toward them as well. We are not Emily, after all.”

At that Andy couldn’t hold in a laugh. “Ok, that I’ll agree with.”

“As you well should.” And with that Miranda pushed open the door and ushered Andy through, going to sign her in and not leaving Andy a choice in the matter.

Andy shook her head and sat down, feeling much better after that conversation than she had before. It had felt nice to laugh. She snorted again. God, if Miranda liked the classics, she wondered what the woman had thought about the 80s. An imagine of Miranda in ridiculous shoulder pads popped up and Andy couldn’t help but laugh again. Oh my god, it was almost like blasphemy, but it was so funny.

Miranda came back over. “What in the world are you laughing at, Andrea?”

“Um, nothing,” Andy said a bit too quickly.

Miranda gave her the ‘explain or there will be consequences’ look.

“Uh, I might have been imagining you in 80s fashion…” She trailed off looking sheepish.

“Specifically what?”

“Shoulder pads?”

Miranda laughed quietly for a few short seconds. “Of course, shoulder pads. I should have known. At least it wasn’t tights and leg warmers.”

“At least your legs would look fabulous in tights.” Andy tried not to react to the fact that she’d just said Miranda’s legs looked good. Over reacting would make it worse. And yet she still had the urge to clamp her hand over her mouth.

Miranda paused for just half a second longer than normal before saying, “Yes, true, I don’t do all that yoga for nothing, but still, Andrea, aqua blue and fuchsia tights? I don’t know what possessed designers at the time.”

“Cocaine?”

Miranda waved that off. “Oh, there is always some sort of drug going around that ‘inspires’ their work, so it had to be something else.”

Andy couldn’t believe they were actually having this conversation. “The general haze of the eighties.”

Miranda tilted her head in consideration. “Perhaps. I admit, that decade was…interesting at best.”

“Did you go along with the big hair?” Trying to imagine Miranda in anything other than her signature cut was hard.

“God, do not remind me. I put a rather large hole in the ozone just by myself with all the hairspray it took to hold my hair like that. I don’t think I was more thankful for my hair turning prematurely white right after I had the girls. Getting it all cut off was a relief after that.”

Andy groaned at the mention of hairspray. “God, my mom used to plaster my head with the stuff for family pictures. It was horrible. My scalp still hurts twenty years later.”

Miranda smiled at Andy. “Oh, I bet those were such cute pictures.”

“Oh no, don’t eve start. No five year old deserves that.”

“I’m sure the girls will sympathize with you. Some of the hairstyles they have in pictures I have of them look simple, but required quite a bit of time.” Miranda smiled softly. “They were worth the bribery with ice cream though.” She looked up at Andy. “I’m sure you’ll do something similar.”

“As long as it’s with soft hold hairspray, maybe.” Her hand returned to her stomach. “Otherwise, they can look like a frizz ball.”

Miranda laughed again. “Much like you on that first day?”

“Yeah, exactly like that. Like mother like daughter.” Andy shrugged.

Miranda looked at her again, much more intently. “Daughter?”

Andy had to sit for a second and recall what she’d said. It had just slipped out so naturally. “Oh, uh, yeah, but that’s just the saying.” She shrugged.

“Do you hope it’s a girl?” Miranda asked.

Andy frowned, thinking for a long minute. She hadn’t really thought about it before in the panicked haze of figuring out how she was going to keep the kid and give them the life their deserved. Then all the of the miscarriage scare things happened. She hadn’t had the time really. Even in those few days of peace between, she hadn’t really thought of it more than abstractly. In her head the baby was still a them, genderless until she was told otherwise. She was still another couple of months out from finding out for sure, so why think of it?

But if she had to pick, what would she want? Either would have her over the moon honestly, and she would love them no matter what, but now that she really thought about it…there was something about having a little girl that did appeal to her.

“I mean, honestly it doesn’t really matter, but…” Andy smiled. “A little girl would be nice.”

Miranda smiled. “A little girl who looked like you would be a heartbreaker. She’d have everyone, men and women, wrapped around her little finger.”

Andy shook her head. “Nah, I mean, I don’t have everyone wrapped around my little finger. Never have. Something about hounding people with questions like some sort of mini-journalist when I was little put them off.” She smiled.

“I think they call that precocious, Andrea.”

“Yeah, but somewhere along the line that word got some negative connotations.” Andy shrugged. “I turned out ok even without the word bowing to my whims.”

Miranda looked over at Andy with an unreadable expression. “I think more of the world bows at your feet than you realize.”

A nurse walked into the room. “Andrea Sachs,” she called out.

Andy stood with Miranda right behind her and they walked back to an exam room. She sighed at the sight of the gown on the exam table, but slipped it on and then slipped the rest of her clothes off under it, still thankful for all those school trips that taught her how to change without exposing any skin. It was still a handy skill.

She sat down on the table after she was done to wait. Miranda was perched in the chair in the corner, looking as prim as ever.

“So what about you when you were pregnant? Did you hope it was a boy or a girl?”

Miranda breathed out her nose, small smile on her face. “I found out very early on that it was twins. It was hard not to when I swelled like a balloon faster than anyone expected. But it was still a while before I found out the gender. I hoped they were little boys, actually.” Miranda’s eyes dropped to the floor. “The girls were a blessing and I thank whatever powers that may be for them every day, but I wanted boys because I did not want my children to have to face this world that is so very unfair to women.” She glanced up at Andy. “Granted it is supposedly getting better with each passing year, but as a woman in the business world, I wonder about the people who say that, because I do not see it. I didn’t want my children to have to fight tooth and claw for every accomplishment. But the girls are bright and I know they will do what they have to, to get what they want, I have no doubt about that, but the fact of the matter is they would be handed so much more if they were boys, and I don’t have words for how vile I find that reality.”

Miranda’s hands were clenched into tight fists and her posture was stiff. There was more fire in her eyes than there ever was going into a board meeting, and in that moment, Andy truly and deeply felt just how much Miranda loved her girls. She would change the entire world just so her babies would get what she knew they deserved. And somehow Andy knew that she would do the same when her little one was born.

“I’m sorry, Miranda. But the girls will make it, even with this world. After all, they have you to help them.”

Miranda smiled thinly, expression not really reaching her eyes. “Thank you, Andrea. I hope that is enough.”

“You’ll make sure it is.” She looked down at her stomach. “I’ll make sure it is.”

That actually brought a real smile to Miranda’s face. “Somehow I think I see a great many articles centering on feminism in your future.”

Andy laughed. “There already were going to be before this. I’ve been a feminist ever since I knew what the word meant.”

“Good. It is as it should be for a bright woman like you.”

Andy glowed just a little bit at the praise from Miranda. “If I can change something, even if it’s something small, then it will be worth everything.”

“Oh, there will be small things, but I suspect there will be big things too. You don’t do anything by half, Andrea. Seeing you work for the last year has shown me that.” And there was that unreadable look again. She wished she could read minds, if only for a moment, to know what Miranda was thinking.

“I’m glad you have faith.”

“To know you is to believe.” And there were more meanings to that statement. She could feel the weight in the words that made it so. But even with all her training she couldn’t pull apart that sentence for any other concrete meaning. What in the world did Miranda mean, besides the obvious?

So Andy just blushed a bit, saving that little mystery for later. She opened her mouth to say something more but Dr. Patel came in a second later.

“Hello, Miss Sachs. I didn’t expect you to be back here so soon.” She looked Andy over carefully.

“I didn’t expect to be back here so soon either. Sort of wish I didn’t have to be, no offense.”

“Oh in these circumstances there is certainly none taken. Shall we get started, then, and make sure your little one is ok?”

Andy nodded.

“Good, good.”

Dr. Patel went through a battery of tests, poking and prodding, looking at an ultrasound picture of Andy’s baby for a few long minutes before nodding, and ordering blood work to be done. Andy swallowed hard at that. Maybe someday she would get over the whole needle thing, but that wasn’t today.

“From what I can see on screen and from all the other tests, your little one seems to be just fine, Miss Sachs. There’s a bit of evidence left behind from your body’s reaction, but I’m hoping it will fade with time, and if nothing else will be in a place where it won’t cause trouble. To be sure I want to look over everything more closely and get the results back from the bloodwork. You should think very, very hard about other optional tests to be done during your pregnancy just to make sure everything is going as fine as it looks on screen, but for now, you can take a bit of a breather. I will see you in another two weeks to make sure.” She smiled, tight an professional. “But before that I will send in our best nurse for the blood work. I recall your distaste for needles.”

“Thanks.” Andy said, posture slumping just a bit. Everything looked fine for now. That was the best news she’d had in a while. Hopefully everything else would come back fine and she would have a happy, healthy baby. But for now, this news was enough to sustain her for a while.

“Of course.”

Dr. Patel exited the room and Andy sighed.

Miranda was at her side in a second, taking her hand. “I’m glad your child is doing well.”

Andy nodded, not really able to speak for the moment. A nurse came in a second later and started the blood drawing. Miranda kept talking throughout, trying to distract Andy. Andy really didn’t hear what Miranda said, but it did work at least some. When the nurse left she got up gingerly and wasn’t dizzy, or at least she wasn’t dizzy enough to have to sit back down.

They walked out of the office together and Miranda called Roy while they were waiting for the elevator. Andy was more focused on the fact that Miranda hadn’t let go of her hand for more than a few seconds since they had been in the exam room. The touch was good, steadying. Andy felt like the good news had taken all the wind out of her sails, but in a good way. Like it was an adrenaline slump, knowing you were safe after being scared, and maybe that’s what it was.

 Miranda hung up and sighed. “He will be delayed a few minutes. Apparently there’s something about traffic. As if it ever goes away in Manhattan, honestly. The man has been a driver for how long now? He should plan for these sort of things. There are things to be done today in the world of fashion.”

That snapped Andy a little more to attention. “You know you don’t have to come to every single appointment, Miranda. I know you’re busy.”

Miranda turned to her, frown on her face. “Of course I’m coming to every appointment with you. I am busy, but not too busy for the girls or for you. I am aware that that comment could have been construed as me being…angry at the waste of time, but I’m not unhappy with how I just spent my time. I am unhappy with the fact that my time will be wasted because of someone else’s incompetence and that you will be made to sit in the cold and exposed to god only knows what viral pathogens because it is cold season and we are in an office building. I keep having to repeat myself on this point, but perhaps you might get it through your silly little head at some point, I told you I would be here for you through the whole thing, and I mean it.” Her face softened. “Am I doing anything to make you doubt that? Because I will right that behavior immediately if I am.”

Andy shook her head. “No, Miranda, no, I just…even those of us who are naïve corn-fed yokels who believe the best in people sometimes have a hard time believing they’re worth all of the good things that you’ve done. And I don’t want to take advantage of that in any way, and I don’t want you to feel obligated to every doctor’s appointment because I don’t want you to get tired of me.” She looked away, shuffling her feet just slightly.

“This has been the root of everything hasn’t it, you believing you aren’t enough?” The elevator came, but Miranda ignored it. “Oh, Andrea, if I had my way you would have the world on a platter just for you. You are worth all of this and more.”

Andy looked up at that. “But Miranda, the same thing goes for you. You deserve a lot more than what you’re getting, but you don’t believe that either.”

Surprise flashed through Miranda’s eyes for a second before her expression was under control again. “Perhaps. Or maybe those are just your rose colored glasses again, Andrea.” Miranda squeezed her hand before stabbing the elevator button once more.

“I don’t think so. I think it goes back to who you are under the Ice Queen persona, Miranda.”

Miranda’s lips twitched up in a small smile. “Ever the tenacious journalist.” The next elevator opened its doors. “Come, now, Andrea. Perhaps if we are lucky our little delay has given Roy enough time to get here.” Miranda tugged Andy onto the elevator, and Andy willingly followed. 


	14. Chapter 14

The twins burst in the front door, chatting with each other animatedly. Andy smiled as she looked up from her book, yet again sitting on the couch in Miranda’s study. It had truly become her favorite place. She closed the book and sat back. The girls would find her soon enough and then she knew that there would be no time for reading.

“Andy?” Caroline called out.

“In the study,” she called back.

A second later there were two smiling red heads in the doorway, complete with reindeer antlers. They had really gotten into the spirit for their last day of school before break. Andy patted the couch beside her and they walked in and plopped down.

“So, how was your last day? You do anything exciting? The last day before Christmas break when I went to school was always just a bunch of Christmas games and eating food.”

Cassidy looked a little jealous. “It’s not super like that at Dalton. They’re a little more lenient, but we still had to do work in some classes.” She scrunched her nose.

“It wasn’t bad, though, a lot of the teacher’s made special lessons that took what we needed to learn for the day and made it Christmas themed.” Caroline shrugged. “We had an exercise in biology that had to do with reindeer genetics. It wasn’t bad. We were trying to find out the probability of another reindeer like Rudolph showing up in a herd of deer.”

“Yes, but did you hear her, Caro? Parties and eating! That would be such a great last day. Like the reindeer thing wasn’t bad, neither was the math thing where we had to figure out how many seconds Santa could spend at each house and still visit everyone, but like, it was still work. Eating is not work. We have Marina. Her dad could have made something amazing. He’s a Food Network chef, Caro. Food Network!”

Andy laughed at the dramatics. “At least you get fun exercises now. In high school they sort of just shrug and say Merry Christmas. Enjoy it while you can.”

Cassidy huffed. “Fine, fine, I’ll appreciate the problems on how fast a dreidel has to spin in order to keep upright and how long a Kwanza candle can burn under certain atmospheric conditions. But cake, Andy. One day of low fat, high fiber, vegan cake isn’t enough.” She flopped over dramatically onto Andy’s shoulder.

“Well, what about we make Christmas cookies. It isn’t vegan cake, but—”

Caroline cut Andy off with wide eyes. “Trust me, that isn’t a problem here.”

Andy chuckled. “I didn’t think it would be. What kind of cookies do you guys usually make?”

They blinked at her. “Mom usually has someone make them for us so we can eat them while decorating. We haven’t actually make any ourselves. Roberta makes really good gingerbread, though. She lets us decorate them when they’re done. That’s fun.” Cassidy smiled and licked her lips.

“Oh no, you have to make them at least once yourselves. Trust me, I’m an expert. They may not turn out as perfect as Roberta’s, because she really makes awesome food, but they’ll be great because you helped make them.”

Cassidy sat up. “Can we do it now?”

Andy shook her head. “Let’s let Roberta get finished up with dinner and we’ll stay out of her hair until she’s gone. If we wait until after we eat, then you guys can eat cookies without spoiling your dinner and having your Mom after all of our heads.”

The girls nodded. “Ok, sure,” Caroline said.

“Good. You guys have any work to do over break?”

They both nodded again, more slowly this time. “We have a book report due at the end of break on Anne Frank’s diary.”

“Ah, a classic. Why don’t you go start on that, that way you have less to do when everything exciting is happening. I’ll call you down for dinner.”

They both frowned in a way that looked so much like Miranda it hurt. “Alright, Andy, but only because you make a good case,” Cassidy said standing up. They both walked from the room a second later.

Andy pushed herself up from the couch, stretching out her muscles and sighing softly. Five days since she’d been in the hospital. She felt fine now, just the regular pregnancy side effects. She’d reached week twelve, her morning sickness was starting to wane now and she didn’t have to pee quite as much which was wonderful. But her vision was starting to blur just a bit, nothing extremely bad, just enough to notice. Her hand settled over her baby bump, that truly was a bump now. When she got back to work she really was going to have to let everyone else at the office know. She wasn’t going to be able to hide it much longer, even with the clothes Miranda had gotten her.

She walked into the kitchen to see Roberta puttering around putting the last touches on what looked to be vegetable lasagna. Andy’s stomach rumbled. Roberta looked up at the noise and smiled.

“Munchies, honey?”

Andy blushed a bit. “Well, that wasn’t really why I came in here, but now that I’m here…yeah a bit.”

“I got just the thing.” She wiped her hands on a dish towel and then turned towards the fridge, pulling out a plate of fruit and vegetables with little cups of dip. “Eat your fill, everything on there is supposed to be great for moms-to-be.” Roberta shook her head. “The amount of lists that Miss Miranda has given me, you would think I had never had a kid before or cooked for a pregnant woman. Such a worry wart that one.”

“She’s been giving you lists?” Andy asked sitting down on the stool and starting to munch on the provided snacks.

“Oh my, lists upon lists. I just keep accepting them with a smile and going about my business. If it gives her peace of mind I am totally okay with doing whatever needs being done.”

Andy’s insides warmed. Miranda really did care for her. She already knew that, but the little things were just…they were really what mattered the most.

“But honey, if a snack wasn’t what you came in here for, what was?” Roberta asked, going back to assembling the lasagna.

“Oh, um, I just wanted to know if we’re all stocked up on the basics for cookie making. The girls and I are going to make some after dinner.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know, the girls haven’t decided yet. They said something about gingerbread, but chocolate chip are always a hit.” She shrugged.

“Let me look, but I think we have everything to make both kinds. Had to stock up for Christmas, don’t you know.”

“Yeah, cookies are one of the best parts of Christmas.”

“You can’t forget the cocoa.” Roberta smiled up at her.

“Oh, definitely.” Andy licked her lips. “Or the candy canes to stir it with. Minty.” She smiled.

Roberta shook her head. “Oh no, I’m just here for the chocolate.”

“Fair enough.” Andy crunched her way through a carrot and sat back. She had satisfied her munchies for now especially since dinner would be soonish. She put the cover back on the plate and walked towards the fridge. Roberta looked up and opened her mouth but Andy spoke up before she could. “You’re already doing something. It’s putting a plate back in the fridge. I can handle it.” She smiled to take any sting out of the words.

“Fine, fine, honey, so bull-headed you are about taking care of everything.” Roberta shook her head.

“Oh, you don’t even know, Roberta, if I was in my true form you would be the one sitting down resting and I would do everything.” She shrugged. “It’s the way my mom always is and it’s the way I am now.”

“Well then, I suppose I’ll just be glad that you aren’t in true form then.”

Andy grinned. “Small favors and all that.”

Roberta snorted. “Oh, I have learned that many a time in this household, you believe me. Dinner will be ready in about an hour and a half. I’ll get this done and stick it in the oven and I’ll be on my way. Timer will be set like always.”

“Thank you, Roberta.”

“Oh, honey, don’t you worry about it.”

Andy shot one last smile Roberta’s way before she walked back to the study and sat back down, picking up her book to pass the remaining time between then and dinner.

 

Miranda stepped through the door ten minutes before dinner was supposed to be ready. Andy heard her shuffling around in the foyer, putting away her coat and bag and slipping off her heels. Patricia padded out to greet her with a soft ‘boof.’ There were the sounds of a jangling collar as Miranda must have pet the big dog and then Miranda was walking down the hall, old floorboards creaking gently under her weight.

Andy looked up just as Miranda stepped through the door way. She put down her book again and smiled.

“Hey there,” she said.

“Hell, Andrea. How was your day?”

“Quiet, mostly. The girls got home and livened the place up for a few minutes, but I convinced them to go start their break homework while dinner was cooking.”

“My, my Andrea. You are quite the miracle worker.” Miranda sat down beside Andy and sighed.

Andy’s heart started to beat just a little faster as she was enveloped in a cloud of Miranda’s scent. Orange blossom, a hint of musk, and paper and ink, like always. It was so soothing.

“Nah, I just made a good case that if they did more now, they’d have more time to slack off later when everything was actually interesting.” She shrugged.

Miranda pulled her legs up onto the couch. “Well then, we will chalk it up to your good negotiation skills.”

Andy laughed. “Maybe. Or I just enough about homework and breaks. It always sucks to have to do a book report on New Year’s Eve while everyone else is having fun because you were an idiot and procrastinated.”

“Well, whatever your reasoning, it worked.”

The timer went off in the kitchen and Andy stood up. “That would be dinner. I’ll go pull it out of the oven and grab the salad if you want to get the girls. Oh, um, we’re baking cookies later. I told the girls I would help them make their own batch of Christmas cookies. I hope you don’t mind. You can join us if you want.” She smiled hesitantly. She hoped she hadn’t overstepped her bounds. Not that Miranda had set any, but still.

Miranda looked thoughtful for just a second. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. Not that I have any illusions that there won’t be a mess all over the kitchen by the time all three of us are done, but it sounds like a good time. I will just change first.”

Andy grinned. “Yeah, might be a good idea.” The timer started going off louder. “Uh, yeah, better go get that.” She walked down the hall with hurried steps and pulled the lasagna from the oven. She took a deep breath. It smelled absolutely heavenly and even though she’d eaten a snack not that long before she was starving again. She quickly put the pan on the counter and peeled back the foil slowly. She cut out even pieces, stuck a scoop in one side, and then turned back to the fridge.

A second later the twins were bouncing down the stairs with Miranda’s ineffectual “Walk girls,” coming behind them. Andy smirked but kept on arranging everything for dinner.

“How was homework?” She asked.

“It’s actually interesting,” Caroline said, going to the sink and washing her hands quickly. Cassidy followed right behind her and did the same.

“Yeah, she was just a little older than we were when she first got her diary,” Cassidy added. “It’s not like the normal boring history books we have to read about dead old white guys.”

Andy snorted at that. “No, it’s not. But their stories usually have better endings.”

“Yeah…” Caroline trailed off.

“But she’s still impacted the lives of millions of people. Somewhere out there, I’d like to think she’s happy about that. Even if it wasn’t exactly the way she wanted to, you know?” Andy wrapped her arms around the girl’s shoulders and pulled them to her.

They both nodded. Andy sensed that a change of subject was needed. “So what sort of cookies do you want? Roberta said we had the stuff to make chocolate chip, gingerbread, and sugar cookies.”

The girls’ eyes widened at chocolate chip. Andy smiled at both of them as they looked at each other, communicating their answers to each other silently in that way only twins had.

“Chocolate chip.”

“Always a classic. All right then. We’ll see about the other kinds later. We might have time, who knows.” Andy pursed her lips for just a second. “Say do you happen to know what your mom’s favorite cookie is?”

They both shook their heads. “She doesn’t eat sweets much and if she does, it’s usually dark chocolate,” Caroline said.

“Hmm, well she totally has to have one. We’ll just have to find out now won’t we?” She smiled at them conspiratorially.

They grinned back. “We can do that.”

“Awesome. Now can you guys go set the table, please? I’ll carry in the lasagna in a second.”

The girls grabbed out plates and walked off. Miranda walked in just as they exited the room. She smiled at them and shook her head fondly. “Honestly. I don’t know why I don’t just have a herd of elephants troop around the house. They would make just as much noise as those two.”

“Yes, but it would be too quiet without them.”

Miranda hummed her agreement. She pulled in a deep breath. “It really does smell wonderful.”

“I know. I’m starving all of a sudden even though I just had a snack.”

Miranda laughed. “I remember that. That was annoying, but the cravings were worse.” She looked Andy up and down. “Those should be starting soon. Anything you want, I can obtain for you.”

Andy laughed. “Thank you, but I think I can handle it. Remember I have all these skills of making the impossible happen that I acquired while working for you.”

“True, I suppose. But if you need to, I won’t object to you dropping a few key names to get what you, I won’t object.”

“Thank you.” Andy grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind in the coming months.” She picked up the pan of lasagna and carried it towards the dining room.

“Water or juice, Andrea?” Miranda called behind her.

“Uh, orange juice, please.”

The girls had set the table when Andy entered the room. Miranda came in a second later with drinks and Andy went back and grabbed the salad. Then for the fifth night in a row they were all sitting down to dinner together. Even after five days nothing was awkward. If anything it had become more comfortable as Andy felt less and less like a guest and more and more like she was actually part of the family.

The twins told Miranda about their day, about their over break assignment, anything that came to mind. Miranda in turn told more Runway stories and then both Any and Miranda debated the book she had picked to read for the day. It was one of Miranda’s favorites, but Andy didn’t think she was really fond of it. She’d read to the end, of course, but still.

And then everything was eaten and it was cookie time. Miranda slipped off with a small smile on her face, promising to change and be back in a little bit. Andy walked into the kitchen with the twins. They all loaded the dirty dishes in the dish washer and Andy turned and grabbed out everything they needed for cookies. She grabbed an apron off the wall and the girls followed suit. They almost came down to the girl’s ankles. Andy smiled at them and ruffled their hair.

“You still have a while yet to grow into them. I didn’t really get this tall until the middle of high school.”

The twins looked at her and fixed their hair huffily. “Andy, not the hair,” Cassidy said.

“Yes, Andrea, not the hair. The hair of the Priestly clan is scared,” Miranda said coming through the door with a smirk on her face. “Or have you not realized that working for me?”

Oh, Andy had totally known that about Miranda. She could pick the woman out of a crowd from half a mile away from just the hair alone.

“Oh no, I’m sorry, it must have slipped my mind,” Andy joked back.

Miranda smiled just slightly and shook her head. “Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” She slipped on an apron of her own. “Now what are we making today?”

“I was thinking chocolate chip, but do you have any special requests?” Andy asked.

“Yeah, Mom, we could make your favorite,” Caroline said.

Ah, eleven year olds. Subtle as a sledgehammer. Andy grinned to herself and started to open up the container of flour.

“We already make my favorite every year.” A slightly dreamy expression crossed her face. “I am very fond of gingerbread.”

“Well, good thing we have the ingredients to make that too, then isn’t it?” Andy smiled and turned to the cabinets again, pulling down spices and other ingredients.

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

“Ok, girls, we’ll make the gingerbread dough first. It has to rest for a few hours before we roll it out and bake it. We’ll make the chocolate chip cookies while it’s doing its thing. Ok?”

They both nodded. “We get to decorate them, right?” Cassidy asked.

“Of course. If we have time we’ll make the icing while the dough rests, if not we’ll just make it while the cookies are in the oven.”

She pulled out the measuring cups. “Ok, I need three cups of flour, a teaspoon and a half of baking powder, half a teaspoon of baking soda, and half a teaspoon of salt together in a bowl please.”

Cassidy grabbed a bowl while Caroline started to measure out the flour.

Andy smiled up at Miranda. “And if you could grab a stick and a half of butter and put that in the mixer.” She handed Miranda an orange. “And add the zest from this into the butter before you start mixing.”

Miranda looked at the orange. “I’ve never seen gingerbread with orange.”

“Old family recipe.” Andy shrugged. “Trust me, best thing in the world, just wait.”

“I do trust you, Andrea.” Miranda looked at Andy for just a second, but Andy could feel the weight of it. She swallowed, speechless for just a few seconds before she recovered.

“I’m glad, Miranda.”

Miranda looked away, busying herself with the butter and the orange. “So am I,” she said in her normal, quiet tone.

“Ok, Andy,” Cassidy said. “What do we do next?” The twins were standing in front of a large bowl of flour, looking at her expectantly.

“Awesome, guys.” She picked up a sifter. “I need you to run all of the flour you have through this sifter. It’ll take a while and your hands will get sore, so take turns.”

Caroline grabbed the sifter and another bowl. “Why, what does this do, Andy?”

“It aerates the flour and helps mix together all of the ingredients that you guys just put in the bowl so the cookies come out better.”

Caroline nodded, satisfied with that information. They both set to work, getting a bit of flour everywhere in the process, but Andy had figured that would happen. She herself started measuring out all the spices needed, loving the smell that enveloped her. Christmas always smelled like cinnamon and clove to her. She was taken back to family Christmases back in Ohio and the warmth they had held. She’d always been so excited when it finally hit December every year and her parents had definitely indulged her, but now there were so many fond memories.

She had to stop her hand from settling on her stomach. She wondered what her parents would think about the baby, about her decision to keep it, about how she didn’t want to get back with Nate just for the child’s sake. If it even was Nate’s. She swallowed hard. That was going to be the hardest part, she thought. Because they would ask if it was Nate’s and she wouldn’t lie to them. She didn’t know. The timing between Christian and Paris and the last fuck she’d had with Nate to see if there was maybe anything worth saving, they were too close.

And most of all Andy wondered what they would think about Miranda helping her out. After all the horror stories about the wicked bitch of a boss, it was going to be a complete one eighty for them. Her dad was going to think something was up. She could feel that now. He would go on about how Miranda would want something from her later. Something probably sexual.

Ironic that it was her that was in love with Miranda and not vice versa. And that even if Miranda wanted something from her later, Andy wouldn’t be opposed. She would willingly go just because it would be a taste of what she wanted most dearly. But how in the world was she going to tell her parents that? And what would they say to her not being completely straight?

Her head spun just a little bit. There were just so many things to think about. Telling all of Runway seemed less scary than telling her parents. Hell, she might just want to tell all of Manhattan from a rooftop before that.

“Andrea?” Miranda said, snapping Andy back into the real world. She looked at Andy, a little bit worried, but she said nothing to that affect, only asked, “What do I do with the butter and orange zest now that they’re in the work bowl?”

“Oh, um, add a cup and two thirds of sugar and turn it on to medium and mix until it’s smooth. It’ll take like five to eight minutes depending.”

Miranda nodded and turned on the mixer as instructed. “What next?”

“Um, whisk the molasses, eggs and lemon juice together.”

“Proportions?”

“Two eggs, half a cup of molasses, and one juiced lemon.”

“Andy?” Caroline asked.

She turned back towards them to find the flour all sifted and ready. She handed them a whisk and the little bowls of spices she’d been measuring out.

“Whisk all the spices together with the flour until they’re mixed in really well.”

The twins set to that immediately, getting a little more flour everywhere, but they were smiling and having fun so Andy wasn’t about to say anything. She glanced over at the work bowl of the mixer. Another few minutes still on that. Miranda was working with the molasses and eggs. She grabbed the lemon, rolled it on the counter a few times to loosen the pulp and started to juice it over a strainer a second later. She handed Miranda the juice when she was done and the other woman mixed it in slowly.

“When you’re done with that and the butter and sugar mixture is ready, drop down the speed to slow and pour that mix in carefully. Wouldn’t want to paint your kitchen with molasses.”

“No, I do not think that would be a good look. Martha would be very against it.”

“Uh, yeah, I don’t think Martha would think molasses on the walls would be healthy.”

“Oh, not that Martha, though yes, she wouldn’t think it was a good idea either. I mean Martha Stewart.”

Andy blinked for a second. “Of course you know Martha Stewart. Why would I even be surprised?”

Miranda smirked. “I don’t know, Andrea, you tell me.”

Andy just shook her head. She busied herself with the mixer, looking down at it again. Nope, still another minute or two left. She looked back at the twins’ bowl. “I think that’s mixed enough guys. We’re sort of at a standstill until the butter gets done creaming.”

“Ok, Andy,” they both said at the same time.

The butter finished creaming a minute later. It was smooth and just a bit fluffy, perfect. Miranda handed off the bowl of molasses to the twins. She switched the machine to slow.

“Pour it in slowly as she said, Bobbseys.”

The girls gathered around the mixer and watched as the mixture integrated into the butter. Andy licked her lips as the scent of orange and lemon mixed together with the darker spice of the molasses. Already it smelled great. She couldn’t wait until they were baking and they’d smell even better.

After the molasses was in Andy dragged over the bowl of flour and a paper plate. She scooped up about a third of the mixture and dropped the mixer down even slower.

“Ok, now the next thing that we need to do is put the flour in slowly. Put about half of what’s on this plate in and wait until it’s worked in before adding the last half. It might take some time, but don’t worry, it will make the cookies taste better in the end.”

The twins nodded. They followed Andy’s directions exactly as Andy and Miranda stood back, watching with fond smiles on their faces.

“Having fun, girls?” Miranda asked when they were on the second paper plate full of flour. There was a little mist of flour in the air, but nothing like Andy was imagining at the start of this.

“Yeah,” Caroline said, concentrated on the cookies.

Cassidy just nodded her agreement.

“You’ve rendered then almost speechless. I say, it might be a miracle,” Miranda teased.

“Mom,” both the twins groaned.

Andy just laughed. “It’s totally a mom’s job to tease, guys.”

“No it isn’t,” Cassidy said. “It’s just their jobs to love us.”

“Nah, there’s a secret mom manual where they lay out everything that moms have to do. Teasing is one of the things, I swear.” Andy tried to keep a straight face, but she was sure that she was totally failing.

“So do you have this manual now, Andy?” Caroline asked, playing along with her joke.

“Not yet. I think I have to be a little farther along before they send it to me. Can’t have me knowing everything too early, you know.” Andy couldn’t help but grin now. 

“Oh I see.” Caroline smiled. “Well, you know, Cass and I are very good at finding things. Maybe we’ll find this manual.”

“Nope, it’s totally invisible to kids.”

“Well, I mean, invisible doesn’t mean not there. We can still find it by touch if nothing else.” Caroline smirked as she helped scoop the last of the flour onto the plate for Cassidy to pour in.

“But if it’s invisible how will you know where to start looking. And if it’s invisible then how will you read it?”

Caroline was stumped at that one. “I’m sure we could figure something out.”

Miranda laughed quietly at all of them, shaking her head. “Such imaginations. I only wish there was a secret mom manual. It would have made the terrible twos so much easier.” She reached forward and pushed the girls’ bangs from their faces with gentle touches. “I may be the Dragon Lady, but you two gave me a run for my money that year.” A smirk crept onto her lips. “But Andrea is right, it is my job to tease you, at least sometimes. Where would the fun be if I didn’t?”

“Mom,” they both said again.

“I’m sure we would all have plenty of fun without it,” Cassidy said. She peeked into the mixing bowl. “The dough looks like it’s done Andy. I can’t see any more flour.”

Andy looked down in the bowl and nodded. She switched it off. “Rip me off a good sized piece of plastic wrap, please.” She started to gather the dough up into a ball. It felt about how it should, a little bit moist, but the flour would take up most of the water while it was resting.

The twins handed her the plastic wrap and she plopped the dough down in a little disc and wrapped it up nicely. “Go put that in the fridge and your Mom and I will wash everything up so we can make the chocolate chip cookies.”

Miranda was already grabbing the egg and molasses bowl and the mixing bowl and heading towards the sink. Andy looked over everything else. The flour bowl could stay as it was, so could all the measuring spoons. Awesome. She headed to the sink and grabbed a dish towel, standing at the ready as Miranda started to scrub the bowls with careful movements.

“How long does the dough have to stay in there, Andy?” Caroline asked.

“About an hour, though the longer we let it rest the better because then the flour can absorb all the water that was in there and the dough will be smoother and the cookies better.”

Caroline nodded. “So by the time we get the chocolate chip cookies done enough time should have passed?”

“Probably, it just depends on how quick we are.” Miranda handed Andy the first bowl and she rinsed it off quickly and dried it. She handed it to Caroline. “Go put that on the mixer and put two sticks of butter half a cup of regular sugar and three fourths of a cup of light brown sugar into the bowl with it.”

Caroline nodded and set off.

“All this talk of cookies is making my sweet tooth act up. Andrea, in one evening you will sabotage the image the world has of me that I never eat sweets.”

Andy laughed. “I never believed that anyway. Not that I don’t believe that you wouldn’t have the will to do it if you want to, but a little bit every now and then isn’t bad and I know you know that.”

Miranda hummed and handed Andy the last bowl. “Everything in moderation, yes.” She looked back at the girls. “Though I suppose that can be suspended if only for Christmas.”

“It’s always suspended at Christmas.” Andy laughed. “What fun would it be if it wasn’t?”

“I suppose you have a point.” Miranda smiled faintly.  

“Andy we’re done, now what?” Cassidy asked.

“Make sure the bowl is nice and locked in and then turn on the mixer to the first setting. It’ll be a couple minutes. Why don’t you go sift together two and a half cups of flour with a teaspoon each of baking soda and baking powder and an eight of a teaspoon of salt.”

“Just how many cookie recipes do you know off the top of your head, Andrea?” Miranda asked as they both dried their hands.

“Um, chocolate chip, sugar cookie, snickerdoodle, gingerbread, and chocolate crinkle. Anything other than that and I actually have to look at directions, but I’ve make pretty much everything under the sun at one point or another.”

“Chocolate crinkle?” Miranda cocked an eyebrow. “I’ve never heard of that.”

“Imagine a brownie cookie covered in powdered sugar and that’s basically what that is.”

“Dear god.”

Andy nodded. “Yeah, I know, but they’re the best thing possibly ever.”

“Done, Andy!”

Andy looked over at the flour covered twins. “You two are quick like bunnies.” She walked over and poked them in the nose, coming away with slightly white fingers. They were definitely going to have to shower after this. Andy smiled.

“Andrea, this butter looks about the same as the last batch.”

“Awesome, then two eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla need to be added.”

The twins of course set right to work on that.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands right after you crack the eggs. We don’t want any of us getting sick because of cross contamination,” she added.

The girls obeyed without question. They knew how to follow direction, even if it was only because cookies were on the line. They really were good girls. And everyone thought they were holy terrors. She snorted lightly. They didn’t know anything.

“Now just do the same thing with the flour as you did last time and we’re good to go. As long as you’ve added the vanilla. They won’t taste right without it.”

A few minutes later they had chocolate chip cookie dough batter ready to go. Andy pulled out a disher and two sheet pans covered in parchment paper and set them on the counter. “Scoop out the batter like this and then place the cookies about an inch and a half apart. They’ll spread in the oven and we don’t want them getting all mashed up.”

She stepped back as the girls got busy. Andy turned and checked that the oven was preheated to the right temperature, which it was.

“So what are you going to do for the holidays, Andrea? Is anyone from your family coming to visit?” Miranda asked as they both watched the girls scoop out the cookies. They weren’t going to be uniform in size, but they would still be good, Andy knew.

She bit her lip. “Um, no, they have other things planned. I was supposed to fly home to them for the extended family and everything, but then the whole thing with Nate happened and now the baby and I really don’t want to throw a wrench in everything by dropping that bomb during the holidays, even if I did have the money to travel. I’ll probably just have a quiet Christmas by myself.” She shrugged and looked away. There wasn’t really a choice in this case.

“Alone, on Christmas? Oh no, I’ve had to do that a couple years when the girls are with their father. It is not something I would wish on anyone. You will stay here then.”

That wasn’t something that Andy had thought she would hear. “Um, really? I mean, I’ve already been here a week. I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

Miranda leveled her with a Dragon level stare. “Andrea, I asked you. How would you be overstaying your welcome if I asked you?”

“Um, I wouldn’t, I guess.”

“Exactly. You will stay here and that’s final.”

“Thank you.” Andy looked away rubbing at the back of her neck. “That really means a lot that you would include me in something so personal, Miranda. I know how much you value family time.”

Miranda reached out and brushed a bit of flour from Andy’s face. “Silly girl, you’re more a part of this family than you realize.”

“Andy, we’ve filled up the pans,” Cassidy said, breaking the little moment.

Andy looked over towards them. “Ok, let me just put them in the oven. Set the timer for six minutes?”

“Will they be done in six minutes?” Caroline looked excited.

“No, you see most ovens have hot and cold spots so you have to rotate the pans halfway through to make sure they all cook evenly. It’ll be twelve minutes total before they come out of the oven.” She shut the oven door and turned towards them. “Though, I know there have to be more than two pans in this huge kitchen, so in the mean time you guys can get the next two ready, ok?”

They nodded and started to go through the cabinets, quickly finding two more baking sheets and setting to work. Andy fell in beside Miranda again.

“Maybe I am. But…I feared that was just my imagination getting the better of me, letting my wants cloud what was really going on.” Andy was glad the twins were so wrapped up in the cookies, chatting with each other, not paying the adults any mind. She loved them to death, but right now, as sensitive as this was, she really didn’t want them to overhear this if things went wrong.

“No, you were seeing correctly.” Miranda was silent for a long moment, but Andy sensed that there was more that she had to say. “I feared that it was you who wouldn’t want anything to do with us, more with me than anything. But you’ve shown that you do want to be here more than once, and still I worry. After enough knifes aimed at my back to fill an armory, perhaps worry is just my constant state.” She was quiet, still, not really matching the warm scene happening in front of them.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Miranda.” She had more to worry about than Miranda. The woman beside her had the power to break her heart into tiny little pieces. She had a death grip on her life as she knew it, job, love, everything. It was such a power imbalance, and Andy knew it couldn’t quite be healthy, but she was ok with it because it was Miranda and she was in love. Someday maybe it wouldn’t be so out of sorts. Someday she would get a job elsewhere outside of the halls of Runway and then it would just be her heart on the line. But that was still a great amount of power to have over someone. Maybe too much. But without it love would never happen and then the world would be a colder place, she thought.

“I know that, but habits, Andrea, are hard to break.” She looked at Andy, eyes clear and honest, with one emotion that Andy had never seen there. There was just a little bit of fear hiding in the back of Miranda’s gaze right beside that look that Andy hadn’t been able to decode just yet no matter how she tried.

“Yeah, they are.”

The timer went off and Andy stepped forward and rotated the pans. Miranda stepped up to the counter again.

“Now, Andrea, how in the world do we make these icings for the gingerbread?”

Andy smiled at her, recognizing that the moment was truly over now. She handed Miranda a bag of confectioners’ sugar. “Lots and lots of sugar.”

And the little family baking session continued without a hitch. Andy couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun baking. Nate had always made it about cooking and getting everything just perfect, which was nice in its own way, at least when everything was done. But this…this was family and it was better. Her little found family would always be better.

 


End file.
